Paragon Interupt
by LeonCr0ss
Summary: During the activation of the crucible, a victorious Shepard is flung to a foreign Earth. Her heroism and general dedication to humanity demands she do her best here as well. Engaging in similar tactics as to how she dealt with the Reapers, she'll try to save humanity once again.
1. Chapter 1

(AN: Trying a bit of writing again. Just finished playing through the ME trilogy again, and Worm is my favorite written fiction. Having already read Exiled, I figured I'd try my hand at a paragon Fem-Shep into Worm. For her face, red head Sarah Shepard by JSRV on the face database. For her name, grabbed it from my favorite ME fic Avatar of Victory, though the personality is my own creation and in line with what I'm comfortable writing. For those familiar with my writing, you'll know that thoughts, ideas, exposition, and conversation are what I tend towards. I write things that are interesting to me, and post it for those that might have similar interests.)

The roof during lunch was her favorite place. It was removed enough that she had been yet to be found up here. Like most good things, too much was likely to be a bad thing. If the trio couldn't figure out where she was and managed to put together it was a frequent occasion they would likely find this spot. So it was really more of an occasional vacation or indulgence than it was a refuge.

As she came through the door, though, something unusual greeted here. Rather than it being her lone sanctum for the lunch period, she found that there was another girl up here. She glanced quickly and guarded, in a way that only the bullied really could, gauging danger and click placement while mentally berating herself for not scoping the area out for bugs first.

The girl was sitting on the ledge, back against a wall, reading the parahuman studies school book. She looked to be about Taylor's age, maybe as much as a year older. She was also about as tall as her, which was odd enough to draw it as a note in her mind. White, as well. That's where the similarities ended, though. She had medium length red hair, green eyes, and an unfair figure. She wasn't built like Emma's model and jailbait body, but more like a statue. Well sculpted muscles and low enough body fat that she was pretty sure the only significant deposits were her C chest and still feminine rear. Closer to Sophia then though in better shape still.

"Yeah. One of those things that's easier for guys." Her voice was friendly, but there was an undercurrent there, steel and fire. Not directed at her, more just a fact of life or a force of nature. She'd heard it occasionally during interviews with some heroes. Legend for one, miss militia on occasion more locally. More importantly, she'd been caught staring. She blushed and quickly looked away before stammering out "What?"

The girl closed her book and sat it on the ledge before standing and looking at her. "Roles and judgments and such. Girls have certain beauty standards. Fitness, chest, ass, hair, complexion, etc. Not to say that a guy that has all those things isn't eye candy, just that if you take a guy and a girl that are of a similar subjective attractiveness level and have them both work out, the guy's subjective attractiveness will improve more. Basically, guys subjective attractiveness is more in their control. A guy can spend a year of dedicated training and get ripped. A girl can't really dedicate time and effort into making her cup size grow."

Her embarrassment faded away as her brain had something else to latch on to, a tasty bit of perspective that she hadn't observed before. It didn't really change anything, but it was still interesting information that she filled away.

"Yeah...yeah. I can see that." She shook her head, wariness coming back a bit as she eyed the girl. The only thing that was holding her back from raising the red flags in her mind was that she had never seen the girl before.

"Aimei Shepard, by the way." The girl, er, Aimei said before holding out her hand.

"Er. Taylor. Taylor Hebert. Are you new?" Easy Taylor, she thought to herself. She hasn't been snagged up by any clicks, but Emma's going to be all over her soon.

Aimei shrugged. "New to the city. I'm not planning on going to school here, if that's what you're asking."

She blinked. "So...uh, why are you here?" Smooth Taylor.

Aimei pointed back over her shoulder to the book. "Studying."

"..." She took half a step back before catching herself, and glanced around. Ok, she'd stumbled on to a crazy person on the roof. Play it cool, Taylor. "You could, you know, learn all that stuff about parahumans better online..."

A shrug and a smirk, picking up on Taylor backing away. It didn't twig her bully senses though, and taking half a second to look at the situation she could see that it was from genuine amusement of what was going on rather than any maliciousness on the other girls part.

"Yeah, and I already have. But there are...different levels of information. What you learn from a high school textbook vs. a college textbook vs. internet speculation vs. legitimate research papers...and that's not even going into what's likely classified by your PRT or whatever shadowy conspiracy groups there are. For something as fundamental to the world as parahumans it's best to have as comprehensive a view as possible."

While that made quite a bit of sense, outside maybe the whole shadow conspiracy thing, there was still "And so you snuck into the most rundown school in the city to steal a textbook to get some perspective?"

"Partially. Also wanted to scope out the hive of scum and villainy to get a feel of the local gangs from the least of their members. Scope them out where they have to remain neutral, get a feel for them in their territory, see how they interact at the higher levels. It's another one of those problems where the way to finding the best solutions involve gathering data from all levels."

Something clicked into place in her head, and her question was out of her mouth before she could stop herself. "Are you a hero?" A new Ward, maybe? Just transferred in to the city?

A raised eyebrow from the girl. "From what I've read up on, I'm pretty sure that at best that's a rude question, and at worst it's likely to get you killed."

She tensed, reading the situation. Bugs in nearby areas began massing but staying hidden for now, ready if she needed them. She was caught off foot when Aimei smiled at her. "But in this case, don't worry about it. I picked up on you being parahuman shortly after we started interacting. You don't seem to have a bad guy mentality, so it would be rude to have a major secret of yours and not give you one back. So, yeah. I'd consider myself a Hero, narratively speaking."

The tension eased off very slightly, and she managed to form words after a few moments of shock. "Th...thanks. But you've got it wrong. I'm not..."

Another raised eyebrow from the girl. "So the few bugs around us started behaving agitatedly when you were clearly distressed at seeing someone up here all on their own? You should work on that. I'm particularly observant, but if it happens frequently you're secret isn't going to stay secret very long."

She sputtered briefly before collecting herself, taking a long and deep breath to calm down.

"Even if that's true, and I'm not saying it is, isn't it still dangerous for you to be telling me these things?"

"Maybe. Lot's of things in life are dangerous. Call it a bet, then. You're not a revealed cape. No one in the local heroes, gangs, or mentioned independents around here do bug control. Thus, you're not established. Either a recent trigger then, or someone that has the good sense to figure things out before she goes rushing into trouble. I'm further guess that you've had your powers a bit, given the usage of them when I called you out. It was controlled and made a good attempt at being more subtle if I wasn't specifically watching for something like it. Gangs would have already put you to work, and you haven't joined the Wards indicating hesitation to do so. Hypothetically, how am I doing so far?"

She mulled it over in her head for a bit before reappraising the girl. Some kind of Thinker power? Maybe...but everything she said sound like reasonable deductions. It seemed more like a lot of experience. Maybe someone that triggered young and just transferred here? She had no idea of the other girls powers, so it was possible.

"Hypothetically, maybe you're right. So what are you getting at?"

Aimei sat back on the ledge but with eyes remaining on her own. "Independents don't last long. Very high death rates, very high rates of being forced into gangs. If you're not a bad person, and you really don't strike me as such, then I'd like to avoid that happening to you. Didn't have any plans of this sort when I dropped in to do some reading and get a feel for things, but I've learned to do what I can where I can."

She froze. The girl, the cape in front of her, was offering to team up with her? The suspision was nagging at her, telling her how this was just another trick, but if it wasn't then this was...amazing. She'd have backup, maybe even a friend? Cool your heals Taylor. You don't know everything about the situation yet. Don't get ahead of yourself.

"You...want to team up with me?" A little more hope and suspicion slipped out in that statement than she had intended.

"Not...exactly."

Her heart fell a bit. Of course no one wanted to team up with Taylor Hebert. What kind of power was bug control anyways? Stupid, stupid.

"Hey. Hey. None of that. I can nearly taste your self deprivation from over here. It's no judgment on your it's just..."

Aimei seemed to be eyeing her critically, thinking things through. She settled back and looked up to the sky while humming to herself for a moment before settling back down and looking at her again with a face that spoke of decision.

"Alright, look. There's more to this, to me, than you know and I'm comfortable sharing with you at the moment. Here's the deal, though. I'm way more developed and experienced than you are. If you're teaming up with me, you're not going to have a lot of natural growth and development. Like, if you joined up with the Wards, then there would be back and forth. You'd learn from them, they'd learn from you. Your personality and theirs would be shaped from the interaction. It's what occurs with peers. But at the moment, you're not my peer. Shaping and molding by interaction is going to be almost entirely one direction. In a sense, rather than natural organic development that you would see you're just...going to be taking on a lot of my traits." She crossed her arms and let her shoulders drop a bit. "Given the vibe around the school, you don't have any friends here. Unlikely to have friends outside of here. How's your relationship with your family?"

She winced.

"Sorry. Yeah, should have expected that. It just makes what I'm saying that much more true. It sounds like I'm going to be your only point of interaction."

Her mind rushed taking all of this in, sorting it out. She tossed up her hands to signal the other girl to give her a minute to process everything None of it was something that she'd given thought to before, or had previous lines of understanding, but it was simple enough she could absorb it and apply some thought to it. After a minute, she nodded to herself. "Two questions. One, how do you know all of this? It's not really...complicated, but it seems like it's...outside the scope of school? And two, hypothetically, how would one develop if they'd had no friends for over a year and been systematically tormented by their one ex friend and half the class? Just to give you perspective on unnatural development."

It was the other girls turn to wince.

"Point taken. As to the first, a friend of mine was a psychologist, and had insights into a lot of interesting subjects. One of the more useful things that we discussed at one point was how one shapes those that interact with them, and how they're shaped in return. Events that shaped me were a bit...larger than what most people ever deal with, so there tended to be a disproportionate exchange in that department even with other people with interesting lives in the Chinese curse sense. As to the second, either independently strong or near non-functional at the extremes, but regardless very broken."

"Yeah. So if the alternative is that or picking up some traits from someone that obviously has her stuff better together than I do, and maybe getting someone to watch my back in the process..."

Aimei nodded. "I get it. But one of our priorities is going to be finding you peers of your own to interact with. I would much rather you develop in as close a way to natural as a parahuman can than be developmentally subsumed by me."

She snorted. "Yeah, ok. I won't say no to that, but I wouldn't be to disappointed when it doesn't work out. Is part of your power way more life experience than you should have? I mean, don't take this wrong, but you really don't strike me as 15."

Aimei chuckled briefly. "Something I should probably keep in mind when dealing with normals. Yeah, something like that. I'll fill you in more later, but you should probably mentally label me as a very experienced 30 year old." She reached into a backpack that was leaning against the wall and tossed something over.

Catching it, she eyed it wearily. "A cellphone?"

"Yeah. Trying to stay in touch via extranet boards seems both unreliable and unsecure. Cell isn't leaps and bounds better, but it at least has the advantage of being so unless someone has a specific reason to look rather than some authority figure, Thinker, or techie running certain search patterns over messages or posts. Speaking of which, be careful of anything you put in data form. It's never really gone or deleted, just some degree harder to access."

A bell down in the building rang, indicating lunch was almost up.

"Sounds like we're out of time. Get a hold of me after class and we'll meet up."

Taylor nodded somewhat numbly before waving at the girl and heading back downstairs. This wasn't anything like how she pictured her day going, but as she thought about it, she picked up a little more spring in her step. No, not at all how she pictured it, but she was pretty happy with how it turned out.


	2. Chapter 2

(AN: For those not familiar with Worm, it's pretty grim dark. I don't think I can successfully manage that kind of story in the same fantastic way Wildbow does, so I'm not going to try. Background will stay true to source, and I won't be pulling any punches I might in other stories. Viewers have been warned. Also: This is not a Taylor/Shepard fic. Haven't decided pairing other than a no to that yet due to sheer experience / maturity difference. Might be some tense changes and stuff here and there. Still getting back into writing.)

She managed to last until just before her last class of the day before she bailed out of school. By subtly tagging her tormentors with bugs, and all of their cronies that reported to them with another kind, she had been able to more or less avoid anything more serious than a few snide words here or there for the past week.

Unfortunately, it seemed as though they were growing frustrated with their inability to corner her and were going all out this time around. There wasn't a single path between the class that just ended and the next one that wasn't blocked by girls seeming to just be "hanging out." If she took any of these routes, the trio would show up at the speed of text and she'd have to deal with something other than mild emotional harassment.

Not today, she thought to herself. Today is Taylor the Hero joining up with her partner in stopping crime and she doesn't have time to be Taylor the bullied getting harassed by three bitches.

So, she did what any nascent hero would do when faced with her situation: she washed her hands for the rest of the school day and walked out the front doors as no one was paying attention in that direction. She had heroing to do today! Well, planning for heroing, likely.

Once she was a safe distance from the school she pulled out her phone and hit the contact button for Aimei, which was answered after only a single ring.

"You alright?" To her credit, she did actually sound concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"School hasn't let out yet. Just making sure it was a tactical withdraw on your part, and not something more serious. Meet me at 1520 Barker Ave."

She paused, pulling up her mental map. "You know that's not the safest area of the city, right?"

"Safe for who? It's Empire 88 territory that isn't on the borders with any of the other gangs. As long as you're white and not proclaiming being anything other than straight at the top of your lungs, it's about the safest place in the city that isn't board walk and literally in viewing range of the local hero base. I'm more than happy to use neo-nazis as a buffer for the moment."

"Alright, I'll be there in about an hour. I want to stop by my house and grab something first." She hung up, hoping that her supposed new partner in crime wasn't a new E88 cape.

...

The location she arrived at was a single story warehouse. As soon as she approached, the front door opened up allowing her entrance though she was surprised to find that it was on some sort of mechanical system. Much like the door, the inside of the building suprised her a big. While it looked a little run down from the outside, the inside was...well, still run down. But there was somewhat clean looking machinery and tools laying around and the beat up from the outside entrance door and the loading dock were heavily reinforced and hooked up to various mechanical things on the inside. In the back corner, there were a handful of cots spread around, and to her right there was a beat up leather couch that Aimei was laying on while rapidly paging through something on a tablet.

"Hey, Taylor. Take a seat. Give me a few moments to finish up some things here."

She did as instructed and took a seat on the far end out of the couch while Aimei manipulated the screen that would have even the text happy teens in her school crying about their inadequacy.

"And. Finished. I'd ask how you're day went, but given that you're here a little over an hour before the day would have been over, unnecessary. About to be blunt, need honest answers. Put together dossier on you, need to insure accuracy to make optimal moves going forwards." She took a breath, and Taylor made a point of taking note of the numerous empty cups of coffee laying on the floor on Aimei's side of the couch.

The girl glanced down and then back up. "Not just good for staying awake. Also good for tons of energy to toss in a direction. Wouldn't recommend for fieldwork, but desk work just fine." She paused. "Takes a bit of training. Otherwise, just a bunch of nervous energy." Quick, deep breath. "Sorry. Channeling someone I used to know. Mordin Solus. Guy could out talk a vorcha on red sand but always used a highly efficient speech pattern skipping over the not strictly necessary parts of a sentence... I may have been leaving myself to my own devices entirely too long."

She couldn't help it. She started cracking up and couldn't stop until she was gasping for breath.

"Breath, Taylor. If I knew you'd find it that amusing I would have taken a bit of time to practice my patter songs. That said, I was serious about your dossier. I do need to make sure my mental image of you matches reality."

When she was finally able to get herself under control, wiping the tears from her eyes, she nodded. "Alright, hit me."

"Taylor Hebert. 15. Nearing 16. Mother died a few years ago due in a car crash due to a cell phone. Father, Union boss of the local dock workers, threw himself into work rather than dealing with his emotions or yours. Not long after best friend Emma Barns turned on you and began a bullying campaign with Sophia Hess and hanger on Madison Clements. Bullying campaign climaxed with you being shut in your locker, fully of used and rotted tampons and pads for the better part of a few hours where you both triggered and had a mental break down leading to a week in a psych ward at the hospital after they finished treating your infected wounds. Have bug control powers of some sort."

She looked at her. "Accurate?"

Taylor's mouth was hanging open. "H-how did you know all that?"

She shrugged. "I could get away with two or three days wandering around the school chatting people up if I wanted to before they stopped assuming I wasn't just in someone else's class. As was, I took the next hall break after you went back to class to get a feel for your school situation. After that, I did some searches in local news papers to get most of the rest of my data points. Following, it was a simple matter to put things together. One of the things you find out is that there isn't really a human condition that's unique, and you can usually make pretty good inferences if you have some background information and a knowledge of the general range of reactions to different events."

Her mouth opened and closed for a few moments before she was finally able to speak. "You weren't kidding about being experienced. Were you a spy or something before? And I think I know what you're talking about, but what's a trigger event?"

Aimei smiled. "Not far from the truth there. I was an N7 infiltrator. Think badass special forces and then add in some spy, assassin and techie. Didn't get to do much of the spy part of that, unfortunately, more the special forces and battlefield assassination. Also a touch of space magic, but not enough to qualify as an adept. We'll get to all that in a minute. Before that, let's talk about your powers. You control bugs, and?"

She looked away. Of course there was an "and". She control bugs. Weak power, of course there should be something else to it.

"That's it. I control bugs, see through their senses, and I can tell them each to do different things. I practiced some choreograph dancing just to get a feel for it."

She noticed Aimei's mouth was hanging open to justly. Of course it was, it was...

"How many?" She interrupted her train of thought.

"Um. All of them? Up to my range, I mean. It's usually about 3 blocks. Gets bigger sometimes. And I guess it's not technically just bugs. Spiders and crabs to. Anything with a simple brain like that."

She was stared at incredulously for a few moments before she started rapidly flipping through pages on her tablet. There was silence except her typing and swipes for two minutes before finally.

"There are approximately 1,600 insects per square feet on earth. A city block here is about 300 feet. You control an area of 2,540,000 square feet in a circle around you. I have no idea how deep bugs live, so let's cut that down to 800 insects per square feet to just say surface and to account for areas like rain forests."

Aimei trailed off, likely doing the math. "So you're telling me that at this moment, without migrating any insects, you are in independent control 2 trillion of them?"

She turned her full attention to her bugs for a minute before nodding. "Eh. Closer to 500 million, and most of them aren't useful kinds..."

Aimei was now in full open mouth gape. "Do you have any idea how much processing power that is? No? Neither do I because I have no idea how many fucking ganglion cells your average insect has, but if it's even 1,000th of a human then from sight alone your data rate input is over 50% of your entire global extranet data rate per second! From vision alone! I don't even know how to calculate that kind of processing power!"

Another deep breath. "Taylor. Your power is...insane. Congratulations, you are at the very, very least one order of magnitude more powerful than your entire planets internet. And that's without moving from where you're standing right now. You're goddamned terrifying. People shooting lasers, sure. Guys turning into dragons, ok. An organic brain doing that...powers are bullshit."

"I...guess." She finally managed, trying to comprehend that. How much energy would that even take? She would be surprised, hearing that, if pound for pound she was wielding more energy than even Legend was. Well, except in a much less useful fashion.

Her internal monologue was cut off by the crushing hug the other girl gave her. "Taylor, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm going to find so many ways to use you!"

She froze in Aimei's arms and went full body blush.

"Oh. Oh no." Aimei took a step back and smirked at her. "Only if you're willing, I mean."

And now the sputtering. Of course the sputtering. And then her hair was getting ruffled.

"Adorable. You can put your mind at ease, though. Remember that chat we had about shaping into your own person and absorbing everything from me? Double for relationships. I'd say my morality on the subject is pretty liberal, but even I'd find it questionable if I completely subsumed your sexual identity as well."

"Ah, thanks? I think?" She cast about for a subject to get Aimei talking about herself so that she would have some time to recover. "What do you mean liberal on the subject?"

Oh. Oh no. Wrong subject, wrong subject. Quick, pull out! But at the same time, she was curious. And it's not like she'd had anyone to do girl talk with since she hit puberty. No Emma, no mom. Shit, she was fucked up.

There actually seemed to be a momentary flash of pain on Aimei's face as she settled back on the couch. "Well. To tell that, I guess we'd have to start with the basics. Taylor my name is Aimei Shepard, which you know, but I was better known as Commander Shepard of the Alliance navy. As near as I can tell, I'm originally from a not so distant future from a parallel universe a few clicks over from this one."

She rolled that one around for a few moments before shrugging. "Ok. So you were some sort of space special forces?"

Aimei raised an eyebrow. "You accepted that remarkably easier than I would have expected."

It was her turn to smirk a bit. "Well, Earth Alph is common knowledge and I've got magic powers that are apparently stronger than the internet. There's a man in this city that turns into a dragon. Your mortal logics are invalid."

Aimei laughed and raised her hands in defeat. "Alright, alright. Fair enough. Yeah, we didn't have anything like that back where and when I came from. Not in our past, either. Mordin would have been fascinated. Quick summery on me, since I know so much about you and as I said at our first meeting that's not really fair. Not far into the future from now in my own universe, we discovered a Mass Relay encased in a block of ice orbiting Pluto. Mass Relays use an effect known as the Mass Effect using Element Zero to effectively lower the weight up something. Mass Relays are so effective at it that you can jump relay to relay in an instant, and then use weaker mass effect generators on ships to travel from wherever you end up to nearby areas in a few hours or days. Basically, we went from figuring out how we might go about making it to the next star system over in a generation or two to being able to reach most anything in the Galaxy in a month tops. We met aliens, fought a war against aliens, and then were begrudgingly accepted by the already existing galactic community as a whole."

Aimei paused, letting me soak all of the in for a minute. I couldn't really help myself, I was fascinated.

"More about me, now. Mom was Navy, so I grew up mostly on star ships depending on where she was stationed. Joined up because that seemed like the thing to do, and there were tensions with a race called the Batareans who had a nasty habit of stealing our people for slavery. Implanted control chips and everything, horrifying to be honest. Wound up basically holding off an invasion force of them by myself for a few days until the alliance showed up to drive them off. That's how I wound up in N7, which was basically Earth's "Space Special Forces." Had a few more years of campaigns after that before I got recruited into the Space Special Forces for the government that represented all the races. Wound up being the first human Spectre, which was their name for it. Had to chase down a rouge Spectre and found out about an ancient race of bio-technical space cuttlefish that had been harvesting the galaxy of advanced sentient races every 50,000 years for the past few billion in the process. Wound up getting killed and rebuilt from basically nothing but my brain, met a bunch of crazy, neat, or just generally awesome people along the way, and eventually helped pull all the races of the galaxy together to fight a massive war and fire off a super weapon to finally wipe them out. Said super weapon used a metric fuckton of mass effect power, and I'm sure you've heard the whole "gravity warps space/time" thing. So here I am, don't ask me to explain that last bit."

I blinked. Well, shit. That was...what? Unbelievable? Awesome? Unbelievably awesome? But looking into the other girl's, woman's, eyes she couldn't help but believe that it was true. What do you even say to something like that? That should be a movie! Or a video game series at the very least. "So...uh. Relationship morals?"

I froze, realizing what I'd finally said, and buried my face in my hands.

"I just told you about my daring adventures to save the galaxy from a race of Mecha Cuthulus and you want to know about who I was dating?" Her voice was slightly incredulous, but quickly broke down into a more teasing tone. "Fine, fine. I remember hormones and life priorities at 15."

She paused and closed her eyes before looking up at the ceiling. "Well, I of course I did the dating and fling thing around your age and then while I was in the military. all good people, but no one particularly interesting looking back on it now. There was the Asari consort that seduce me and proved I was pansexual rather than just bi...but I guess the first person really worth mentioning these days is Kaiden. He was a really sweet guy, had his head on straight, wasn't afraid to tell me what was on his mind, and not bad looking either." That sad, wistful look came back momentarily while she continued speaking. "While we were chasing that rouge Spectre, Saren, I had to make the choice to either save him or another of my squad mates, Ashley, and a bunch of Salarean special force guys...I'm not ashamed to admit I still almost picked him, but he wouldn't let me. That was probably the most painful thing I've gone through." Her eyes sought mine, and she clearly wasn't bothered by the moisture that had built up in her own.

"After I died and came back, I wound up building a crew out of some of the most interesting individuals in the galaxy. One of them was a Drell and about the nicest assassin you've ever met. Thane. Also terminally ill and into it's last stages. Tortured soul in a bad ass looking for redemption, but I didn't really start feeling anything for him until I saw how he was with his son. By that time my Yeoman Kelly, the psych friend I mentioned, was already seeing him for similar reasons. I enjoyed being around her as well, so that's just how that worked out. He wound up dying a few months later not from his illness but from saving a councilor from an assassin. Kelly broke things off because of a combination of not being able to stand the thought of me dying as well and needing to separate herself from some terrible things that happened when she served on my ship. That...wasn't as hard. I knew Thane was going to die going into things, and Kelly was fun but I was never as close to her as I was to Thane or Kaiden."

She sighed. "Lastly, the was Samantha Traynor. She was cute, fun, flirty, and...there, I'm not ashamed to admit that. But I did start to develop the spark of something more there before the final mission that wound up with me here. She mentioned white picket fences and two kids and...well. It sounded nice. After all the war and hell I'd been through, yeah."

I took the initiative and leaned over to hug Aimei, pulling her close for a minute. "I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry."

She returned the hug for a minute before pulling away. "It's. Well, remembering the bad is worth remembering the good. My brain's still processing the fact that Samantha is gone as far as it matters, or not born yet if she ever will be. Most human brains arn't really conditioned for the whole "being upset doesn't change anything." But we pick up and carry on, making due with whatever situation we find ourselves in. There's a life lesson you should pick up from me here, though: Love isn't any one answer. You can love someone because they're a good partner, or you can love someone because of past experiences. Or you can love someone for a short time because that's all the time you have them for various reasons, or you can love someone because they're there and you like spending time around them. There's different terms for them in general. Short term loves, long term loves, infatuation, new relationship energy...at the end of the day it's neurons and chemicals in your brain flying around that say "This person(s) makes me happy." If you get hung up on finding your "perfect love" or you mistake your crush on a guy or girl for your brain telling you this is someone you should be with forever! you'll miss out on so much and break your heart so many times. Date people, hang out with people, meet friends, figure out what you like, who and what types get your brain chemicals tell you that you're happy."

I just nodded. "Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. I'll keep that in mind." I didn't know if it was because I lacked a friend, mom, or just another girl in my life but I meant it. Her experiences and words carried a lot of weight with me, and I couldn't help but let my mind think back to our earlier meeting and how accurate she was about subsuming my development. But the alternative, I think looking back, was the lack of any meaningful development at all at best or developing in some horrifying direction from a much worse role model at worst.

We spent a awhile talking about lighter subjects. She told me a bit about the different races like the Asari, Turians, Quarians, and others. "I had a Turian and a Quarian pretty much all the way through. Garrus and Tali. Garrus was one of the best snipers in the galaxy and my best friend. Tali was like my little sister..."

More specifics about how their tech worked, and how she could replicate a fair amount of it given the right tools. "The real difference between how much of this stuff an actual engineer and an infiltrator knows is how fast we can utilize it on the battlefield. I can whip up a chemical concoction , piece of tech, or lines of code almost as good as what they can come up with. Difference is I need some time to wrap my head around things and preload the programs. A proper battlefield engineer can do all that on the fly while hiding from or firing bullets."

Her one really unique trait even in the future. "The squad always joked that it was my "Bonus power", like in a video game or something. Basically, I've got just enough element zero in my body that I can program it to produce one kind of effect. It's like...ok, so brain neuron connections kind of work like biological coding. X is hooked up to Y, these lighting up make this color or memory, etc. So element Zero in your body is similar. So you have someone like Jack who's got more raw Eezo flowing through her body than an Asari matriarch and it can pretty much find any possible connection for any effect that's possible for a human body to generate. I, on the other hand, have just enough that if I cake the time and meditation to rearrange how my partiuclar concentrations line up I can reliably light them up to produce a single kind of effect. Right now, they're lined up to produce a stealth field. Not as reliable or accurate as a proper tech version but I don't have an omni so I'm making due with using negative gravity to warp space time around me. Once I get a proper tool I can shift that to something more traditional."

The most important topics settled back on to the heavier, towards the end as she told me of her plans. "So right now, I have something of a rough list of things that need done, but haven't quite decided the best order or how to go about all of it." She pulled out a while board and started jotting down while I went to get a soda from the fridge in the back. When I returned, I read the board:

1: Either come up with some kind of deal with or break into the PRT to get access to tinker supplies so I can get us properly equipped.

2: Form a team.

3: Take over a gang.

4: Kill the Endbringers or otherwise make them a non-issue.

5: Figure out if there's a mass relay near Pluto in this universe.

6: Find out if there's a race of Mecha Cuthulus that need their assess kicked here as well."

I choked on the soda she had gotten me. What had I gotten myself into?


	3. Chapter 3

(AN: Yup, more conversation! We're closing in on about 1/6th the way through a young adult novel (or 1/166th Worm's monstrous 1.5 million words) and still in what's basically an extended chat. In my defense, I'm enjoying writing it which is the entire point on my end! The story will eventually progress. In some direction. At some point. Probably! Also: Thanks for taking the time to review! Also Also: There's grammer flaws. I'm posting these as soon as I finish typing them with 0 edits. Why? Writing is pretty fun. Editing isn't much fun. Like, if writing is a positive value of 7 and having a grammatically correct story is a 7.5 and editing is a 4 then the marginal utility value of taking time to edit requires external incentive. If I had to guess, I'd say for most authors that's either increasing number of people reading or because they get a reasonably high value from actively increasing their technical writing skills! I'm quite content with increasing mine passively.

ALSO ALSO ALSO: That's not to demean reviews with those kinds of comments! Thanks for caring enough to post them! It reminds me to keep an eye out for those kinds of things when I'm writing! Just because I have no desire to edit doesn't mean I'm not going to maximize the positive value of my time by increasing my writing skills simply by keeping such reviews in mind as I do what I do.

Oh. Right. There's supposed to be a story here! On with the show!)

...

"Alright...so..."

Aimei smirked as I cleaned the soda I managed to make a mess with but otherwise patiently waited for me to continue.

"Ok. So. Break into the PRT? Take over a gang?! What the hell? I thought you were a Hero!"

She shook her head. "I said I'm narrative a hero. You know, the good guy? I'm not a Hero like the guys that have 66% of their job revolving around PR. I did my time in the military. Good people, get shit done. But you can't save the world that way if all you have on the board are Samurai. You have to have ninjas too. Getting information, removing people from the board however you have to do it. Besides, there's something else going on here. I just can't see what it is."

I held up a hand. "Ok. Let's assume that I agree with you on those points, what do they have to do with breaking into the PRT and leading a gang? And what do you mean something going on?"

She looked at me thoughtfully. "Do you read much? History and fiction in particular?"

I had the dignity to look a bit sheepish at that. "I used to. Mom was an English prof. It's been...hard to get into since then."

She looked a little sad as she continued, and I was grateful for it. "Sorry. The point is, there's a general trend with humans, and as I've discovered sentient races in general, that when their backs are against the wall from an outside source they tend to put their differences aside and fight for all their worth. Happened in human history in a number of wars, happened in timeline with the Rachni, the Krogan, and eventually the Reapers themselves. It should be happening here with the Endbringers, but it's not. Super powers don't magically change the human condition. So something's going on here I'm not seeing."

She seemed to pick up my growing sense of unease and reached over to ruffle my hair. "That's a big picture problem though. Something to keep in mind going forwards and to give some thought to now and then but ultimately a problem to solve once we have the resource to throw at it. And by resources to throw at it, I mean at the very least controlling the criminal underworld in Brockton bay."

I glared at her, pointedly refusing to give her the satisfaction of raising to her bait, instead calmly replying. "And we're taking over the criminal underworld instead of getting rid of it why?"

She blinked and opened her mouth to say something before pausing. "Right. Sorry. Not used to dealing with teenagers. Ok, so, crime is a systemic problem most of the time, at least the crime you're dealing with here. You can't get rid of it by punching it in the face. Brockton Bay is basically a dying city with more and more of the population falling destitute as there's just not enough work to go around. If you can't work, you can't earn money. If you can't earn money, you can't afford shelter, food, and so on. Much less if you have any offspring or other dependants. Problems inherent in a system that requires people to pay for the right to live, but that in turn is inherent in a society that's scraping up against scarcity of resources even without the executioner's axe in the form of the Endbringers."

She'd stood at during her explanation, gesturing occasionally as she made points and reminding her very much of an enthusiastic teacher. Probably a college prof. I doubted very much that even somewhere like Arcadia would highschool teachers be legitimately passionate about whatever they were going on about. I slipped from my musings to continue listening finding that oddly enough I could "outsource" my subconscious chatter to my hivemind thing.

"So you wind up with a ton of people without great options. Join a gang, get money, survive and maybe more. Kaiser rallies people to the E88 by blaming the minorities. So there's a situation of "Join us! Food! Protection! Improve the city by getting rid of all of those minorities dragging us down and taking our jobs!" And then on the other hand you have Lung who came over after Kyushu sank. Gotta hand it to the guy, stood toe to toe with Levi and is still here. Granted, Levi is fine and Kyushu is gone despite Lung physically stalemating him, which is actually quite symbolic for the state of your world…"

"Oh! Off subject! Ok, so, he takes over immigrants from a place far worse than even Brockton Bay here and then co opts the local asians though with Kaiser beating his drums he doesn't exactly have to go hunting for people that want in to get away from that. So the Heroes are basically a bandaid on something that's in desperate need of surgery, slowing the rate of collapse but doing nothing to actually stop it."

She finally paused to take a breath and pointed at me dramatically. "And that's why you can't just punch out an Endbringer!"

She blinked.

I blinked.

She seemed to consider her words for a moment, mulling them over before shrugging. "Huh. Basically the same thing when you really get down to it. Neat! Can't punch out crime, can't punch out Endbringers. Gotta plan and use your resources effectively, applying your strength in the critical locations where it will advance your goals. Little clicks here and there until it cascades into your victory. Just matching strength to strength with these kinds of things causes lots of collateral damage and you lose anyways, just like Kyushu."

I stared at her for what seemed like minutes as my brain wrapped around it. Weighed, tasted, tossed and turned. Ultimately finding no points I could argue but many that I found wanting further clarification.

I raised a finger. "First. Lung fought _Leviathan?_ "

"Yup. Single handedly after everyone else ran away. Turns out he really can ramp up to match anything on your planet blow for blow. Dunno if your planet would survive if he pissed off the Autistic Goldenboy somehow."

I filled away both Lung apparently going a few rounds with Leviathan and Lung potentially throwing down with Scion in my city firmly in my nightmare fuel section and then locked it up to open only if absolutely relevant while shuddering in the process.

"Second. What do you plan on doing once you're done taking over?" Because I was starting to develop this sneaking suspicion that it was less a case of if and more a case of when. She certainly had the crazy part of crazy enough to try down…

"Clean it up a bit, shift everything over to victimless crimes. Use the funds generated to improve the living quality of the people that live in the city so that they're not as desperate, impoverished, and pretty much given up. Probably throw a chunk of money at one of the many parahumans that could trivially clean up that eyesore of the boat graveyard so the port can be used for trade again. Really, the constant reminder of the state of the city is a horrific morale sink. Don't get me started on closing international shipping because of fear of Leviathan. The Endbringers attack cities on basically a schedule for "

Another blink on my part. It wasn't really that simple, was it? I mean, sure. There were plenty of parahumans that could take care of it. Hell, E88 could probably have handled it in under a month if they were so inclined. Alexandria could handle it in a day. The right tinker could…"Holy fuck. Why hasn't anyone done it?"

"The city itself doesn't have the cash to gamble on it helping. Lung doesn't care about much in general, Kaiser is advancing himself on the fear and misery of the current status quo, and so on. Trivial problem to solve when we have the resources. Just call up the Toybox and see what they would charge to handle it." She waved her hand dismissively as though taking care of one of the biggest problems in the city for long as I cared to remember was nothing. I guess compared to saving the Milky Way, it kinda was.

"After that, I use the information I gain between now and then to figure out how best to use the resources to solve the Endbringer problem. Probably secure additional funding by grabbing whatever parahuman and other muscle I can and tossing them into a hero leaning mercenary group." She sighed loudly. "I miss Liara. She'd have all the information I could possibly need ready and waiting for me in under a month." Her eyes fell on me with something resembling growing excitement like a kid that just got a puppy for Christmas. "OH! When you get done with question time, say Shadowbroker! I have ideas that need testing!"

"...ok. Maybe less caffeine next time?"

"Only partially caffeine. Brain's used to being in a body that was basically at war for two years suffering all kinds of mental and physical trauma up to and including dying and being brought back to life once. And now suddenly it's not only in a brand new body without all that accumulated stress and damage but also overflowing with teenage energy and hormones. May the anthropologist help my enemies."

And the rest of the world too, I mentally added for her. "The anthropologist?" Is what I managed aloud.

"The Asari religious like swear was "By the Goddess." Turned out said Goddess was basically an alien anthropologist 50,000 years ago helping shape her species to lead our society once they all got murdered by the Reapers. We kinda basically had Asari mindsex a few times and you tend to pick up a few traits from the other person when you spend time swimming in their brain. Not that we were doing it for the mindsex part! I mean, it was enjoyable in a super intimate "haha it's literally impossible for you to be this close to any not Asari!" kind of way, but we did it to transfer a bunch of data and understanding and stuff. I picked up a few of her more...exuberant traits and she, uh, eventually became the galaxy's most infamous and powerful information broker with her own army of spies and mercenaries."

She scratched the back of her head. "One of those shaping and be shaped things, but dialed to 11 from direct contact with the source material."

"I. See. So tons of caffeine, traded out your busted old body for a newer, better model, and a left over residue from a past conquest?"

"Don't forget not being shot at for, like, a month now." She mused aloud.

Ok Taylor. You can do it. You can do this banter thing. I smirked at her. "Sure this isn't just the galaxy's most fucked up midlife crises?"

Her eyes slowly widened until they were comically large before her mouth opened up into possibly the biggest smile I'd ever seen on a person. Granted I live in Brockton Bay so that wasn't saying much, but oh hello, my thoughts derailed I was engulfed in a hug.

"Hello Taylor! I was wondering when I'd get to meet you!"

"Hurgh?" I managed, from where my face was pressed into just under her clavicle.

"Nope. I met a girl wearing a nice, battered set of scabs like the world's most depressing but functional suit of armor...though just like that probably would physically it's pretty infection generating for your brain and never mind all that! You need to smile more! And be happy. Which requires reasons to be happy!"

She grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me out so she was gripping me at arm's length before looking me in the eye before moving forwards again and leaning her head close enough that I blushed on top of the whiplash.

"Which means we're going to the mall!"

"Hurgh?" I, unfortunately, didn't have the excuse of being physically unable to form words this time. Just simple dumbfounding.

"I've got some money stashed away that I've liberated off some bad guys. Let's go put it to good use. My teenage body is crying out for a shopping spree!"

I didn't get a chance to complain or retort as I found our arms looped together and I was practically dragged out the door. But really, there wasn't a cell in my body that would have voiced disapproval with the direction my life was suddenly spiraling in.

...

(AN: Damnit Shepard! That's not the direction of conflict and plot! Turn around! Where are you going?! WE STILL HAVE EXPOSITION TO GET THROUGH! AND EXPERIMENTS! DID YOU FORGET ABOUT THOSE?!)


	4. Chapter 4

(AN: Convenient meetings are convenient. Why go with convenient? Because I wouldn't much enjoy writing out random OCs, so much better for me to use some of the existing extended cast the Worm so helpfully provides. Onwards with the show!)

...

I looked over the stack of clothing that Aimei had gathered for me after a fair amount of time spent browsing through them. Most of them were pretty standard teenage girl fair. Simple tee shirts and jeans type things. She'd also picked out a few things that were outside my norm; some of them were things that I was fine with like band tee shirts while others I was a little more iffy on.

One such example was the black band belly tee, skinny jeans, and hoodie that she was wanting me to try on.

"You know, I'm not really sure why you're making a big deal about this. They're clothes, and they'll look good on you."

I half palmed my face and rubbed my hair. "It's just not things I'm comfortable wearing. I mean, it shows of my stomach! And the jeans are entirely too tight!"

She tilted her head inquisitively. "So you're saying there's something wrong with girls wearing things like this?" She smirked slightly. "I happen to enjoy wearing these kinds of things. Didn't get much chance with the war and all, but…"

My eyes widened and I held up my hands defensively. "No! I mean, no, there's nothing wrong with it. It looks great on you!" I could help but toss her an enviable glance.

She clicked her tongue in response before giving me a full on smile. "And there's the crux of the issue. Not complaining it goes against your style, not ideological or moral arguments, just simple negative connotations associated with your body image. So not an internal positive value preventing it, but rather a negative one tied to one of many issues."

She walked over and poked me in the stomach. "Reasonably firm, not much fat over your abdominals. Pretty close to showing them. Hm…"

I glanced around nervously and embarrassed as she dropped into a crouch and felt my leg from the thigh down to the calf, relieved that no one was paying attention. "Solid definition here. Guessing you run quite a bit. Can't blame you with your motivation, good effort. A+!"

She stood back up and was smirking, likely in response to my blush. "So objectively, you've got both the stomach to show off a belly tee and legs it's quite a shame to have hidden completely from the world. Objectively, you'd rock this outfit. Which means," She poked my head, "your subjective view of yourself doesn't match the world. Bad habit to get into there."

I groaned and picked up the outfit in question before moving to the changing room. "You're impossible to argue with, you know that? What's next, going to suggest a low cut tee?"

Her reply was a cheery smile and wave. "The trick is to be able to convince other people that you're right. The fact that I'm almost always right gives me a huge bonus in such things of course. And not without a push up bra. Clothes are like art. Show off aesthetically pleasing things you have. I'd be both a terrible artist and friend if I was dressing you in things that drew attention to both things that you're self conscious about and would make you look worse rather than better. Which is why you can trust me on this!"

I paused, just for a moment in my shuffling. "Isn't that kind of false advertisement?"

She blink, paused with mouth half open for a second before scrunching her lips together slightly. "In the same way makeup, tanning, straightening your hair, or any number of other things that people do to themselves so that when they look in the mirror at whatever look they're rocking that day they can smile and nod at themselves. If you want to rock a look that accents your chest, shape your look so that it fits. If it bothers you I'd normally recommend cosmetic changes."

Her nose scrunched slightly now in distaste. "But I've seen what youe time period is rocking in that vein so unless it bothers you to an extraordinary degree, I'd recommend avoiding that option." A quick glance around and a slight lowering of her voice. "We'll just do Panacea a solid at some point and cash it in for some body mods or gene therapy at some point if that's what you want."

I started to protest that we couldn't possibly use the world's most premiere healer in such a way, even if I wasn't sure she could even do things like that, when she tapped her foot and glanced at her watch. "Now toss that on and let's go grab lunch. Less focusing on the things that bother you today and more focusing on the good. Like your legs in those jeans!"

It took me a few minutes to get changed and look myself over and in the end I couldn't really think of a good counter argument. From my perspective, I did kind of rock the look. Sure, my butt didn't quite fill out the jeans (and I could already hear Aimei's voice in my head telling me that we'd just take out a page from the guy's book of self improvement and do some muscle building activity there if it bothered me) but my legs looked great and my stomach was approaching fit. It wasn't quite the skinny girl with a belly button piercing look, but another month of solid work and I'd have some definition going on there.

I tried to smile a bit as I left the dressing room but it halted and came off more self conscious as I grew aware of other people besides myself and Aimei existing. She didn't miss a beat as she tossed an arm over my shoulders and dragged me to the register to pay before then dragging me off into the courtyard to get lunch.

And by drag me to get lunch, I mean she dragged me to the courtyard, spotted something, and then dragged me over to a table occupied occupied by by a red haired guy around my age and an attractive guy a little older.

"Hey. Are these seats taken?"

They seemed slightly shocked and a little taken back. To be fair to them, that was probably the exact right state of mind when you were dealing with Shepard. From what she'd seen so far, the girl tended to just mull over a decision, pick a direction and arrive at her destination with whatever obstacles that were along the way, such as other peoples opinions on the matter, thoroughly smashed until they fit the shape of the road that she was traveling. The fact that the road created was typically in better shape than it was originally kept me from voicing any particular complaints.

"Er. No?" The older guy managed, looking distinctly confused in the process. "Uh. I'm Dean?"

Trying to get the distinctly odd situation back into territory that he, and any reasonably normal person, would be familiar with and reestablishing comfort.

…

Shit. My mental voice was starting to sound a bit like Aimei. That was bad, wasn't it?

"Dennis." The other offered, settling back into a more normal mood. "Now, I have no reason to complain about two cute girls coming up to me randomly, but uh, whats up?" He actually looked very, very mildly worried and I wasn't sure why. I probably would have thought more on the subject if I wasn't busy willing a blush to not form. I'd been doing that a lot in the past few hours, come to think of it.

Aimei, for her part was completely unphased of course. "Oh, you know. Two teenage girls out doing the whole shopping spree thing. Decided to grab lunch, spotted two guys around our age, thought it would be fun to hang out."

I kept a cool face externally, but internally I was in full freak out mode. She just decided that we'd double date the two random guys in the courtyard? At least that was very much what it sounded like. Dean seemed to think the same way as his brow creased slightly while a slight grin started to etch its way onto Dennis' face. Of course he'd be upset by the prospect, though. I mean, Chris wasn't unattractive and Dean was a bit of eye candy in the prep sort of way. And while Shepard was hot, there was only one of her which meant one of them would have to…

I was elbowed in the side and my thoughts collapsed as I looked over to see Shep give me a very pointed sidelong glance before turning her exuberance back on the two boys and rolling her eyes.

"Don't worry, not a date. Won't have to explain anything to your girlfriend." She motioned at Dean before glancing in Dennis' direction. "And really? Two "cute girls" come up and offer to eat with you and the first thing you basically say is "why?"" She smirked. "I'm sure you'd have a lot more fun if you just let things play out and figure them out a bit more naturally."

"Girlfriend?" Dean's voice had taken on a inquisitive tone by this point.

She shrugged. "You had the "I need to let this girl down gently" good guy look going on. Either gay, not interested, or you have a girlfriend. You checked me out despite yourself when we first got over here, so my money's on the girlfriend. Anyhow, you kids play nice for a bit, I'm going to grab Taylor and me some food."

She gestured me to a chair which I gratefully took to give my head a moment to stop spinning in the situation. Once it had chilled out, I realized that I had sat at the table with two unknown guys by myself and had a sneaking suspicion that it had been engineered that way.

"So…" Dennis ventured. "She always like that?"

I groaned and buried my face in my hands.

The boys shared a chuckle at that. "So, uh, what's your name?"

I gave a weak smile. "Taylor."

"Nice to meet you Taylor." He responded with a more genuine smile. "What school do you go to?"

I frowned slightly. "Winslow."

The two boys winced at that. "Sorry to hear that," Dennis started, before Dean elbowed him. "I mean, not that there's anything wrong with it or anything."

I snorted. "Don't need to dance around it. Place is a shit hole and a prime gang recruitment zone. Staff turn a blind eye to anything they can manage without to much trouble. Gang recruiting, vandalism, bullying." The last was said with as little bitterness as I could manage, though given the way Dean looked I'm guessing that something of it showed on my face. He didn't comment though, which I was grateful for. "I get that they have a lot of stuff on their plates and it's a balancing act, but there's a point in which you've failed the people you're supposed to be responsible for? I guess that's the city in general these days though, you know? Slowly sliding into decline while everyone from the mayor to the heroes do what they can to either help or keep up appearances but are ultimately helpless in the face of inevitability. You don't always see it. Some places are nicer and avoid it like Arcadia and the Boardwalk, but when you get your ear and everything else to the ground, well." A sigh.

The boys were no longer laughing, and in fact had adopted a slight look of contritement? Weird. Point was, the general attitude was rather somber as a tray was set on the table in front of me and Shepard glanced around with something resembling resignation.

"You people had one job." She sighed. "Taylor, you were supposed to make small talk. Guys, you were supposed to play nice and toss some compliments about Taylor's new outfit." A facepalm then. "Ok, so what topic of conversation turned this little corner of the world so grim and gray?"

We shared a glance between the three of us before Dean finally bit the bullet. "Well. Dennis asked about where Taylor went to school, and"

She held up a hand, a look of thought etched deep into her face. "Don't know each other from school, of course. Natural conversation opened. Roll of the die which such conversation opener would be used." She sighed. "But of course that would be the one to come up and I didn't think it through."

She drummed fingers on the table while I took a bite of my burger looking on with something of amusement growing in my mind. The boys were just back to blanket confusion, which was normal as they didn't have the context I did for these things. This was the situation I was very quickly coming to realize as Aimei's "Mulling it over and then picking a direction" phase. Next would be…

"Ok, got it." She finally said. "Dennis, how does Taylor's outfit look?"

Heading in the direction with obstacles like normal social conventions and procedures be damned.

The boy was in the process of taking a drink, a poor choice when one was dealing with Shepard, and promptly spit it on himself as he sputtered which caused a burst of giggling to come from me.

"It looks good!" He tossed me a weak smile between his coughing fits, Dean patting him on the back.

"Hm. She was worried about it not having figure to pull it off…" Bait set.

"No! Not at all. Her body looks great in it!" His eyes widened comically and he glanced around quickly like a cornered animal. "I mean. I didn't mean. I…" Bait taken.

She smirked at him, while I lost control and openly cracked up at the situation, pointedly not blushing. Nope, no blushing here, not at all, no sir or ma'am, after which the rest of the table followed along in the laughing.

It took a few minutes for us to finally get ourselves together when I managed, "I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that Aimei ignores all social defenses with."

"Man." Dennis took on a grousing tone. "It's like I don't even have an MDV. Hax, I call hax."

I raised my eyebrows. "MDV?"

He froze, slightly. "Uh, sorry. Geek term. Mental Defense Value. It's a defense against social...uh. Gamer term from a tabletop roleplaying game."

I took a bite of my fry, casually venturing. "You mean like Dungeons and Dragons?"

He looked like he was stepping out onto a frozen lake very gingerly. "Uh, yeah. Kinda. I mean, it's More fantasy and anime than low to mid fantasy."

I nodded. "So more Wheel of Time than Lord of the Rings?"

His tension started to melt away and he grew more animated as he talked. "Yeah, kinda. It's all really over the top. You get bonus dice for describing what you're doing in an action, and you can get crazy with it. Like some of the abilities let you run across raindrops or block any sort of attack, even an explosion, with your sword."

The conversation continued on on that vein a bit, while part of me was absently paying attention to Dean and Aimei's conversation off to the side.

"You go to Taylor's school?" He ventured, very cautiously and unsure maneuvering himself in conversation like a man in a dense fog.

"Hm. Sure, I go there."

I paused in my conversation with Dennis to take a drink in order to mask my snort. Sure, when she's randomly there to steal someone's textbook. I must not have been as stealthy as I'd have liked as Dean glanced in my direction for a very quick second and then back again at my burst of amusement.

Aimei waved a hand. "Nah. Messing with you. I just moved to the city recently, getting a lay of the land. Ran into Taylor earlier today and now we're besties." She held a pinky out in my direction and I rolled my eyes while listening to Dennis talk about the different kinds of Exaltations.

"Well, Taylor's my bestie even if she doesn't feel the same way." She said with mock hurt as she withdrew her hand. "Anyhow, I take classes from home, so I haven't had much chance to meet people the normal was."

Dean nodded, a somewhat amused look. "And I guess you ran into Taylor and decided that you'd be BFFs?

Aimei shook her head. "Nah. Taylor was the one that was insistent that we're partners now."

Deans look twisted into something much more confused while I was very willfully not coughing. That liquid in the wrong tube be damned, it could settle in my lungs. They were setup to handle that, right? They would use the same hole if they could clean themselves up from accidents, after all. Dammit Shepard, I wasn't even talking with you!

I ran damage control before this could spiral. "No! I mean, no. We're not like, together. I mean, I'm straight, I'm not like Aimei, so we couldn't…"

She raised an eyebrow while the two boys were once more firmly off foot and looking very confused about their place in the world at the moment.

"Like me?" I could see it, I could see the bait set. Nope, not playing this game.

I took a nonplused drink and shrugged. "You know, poly and pansexual." I managed, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. I was quite proud.

If Aimei was put off by not baiting me she was an expert at not letting it show. Instead she tilted her head as though trying on the words like articles of clothing before shaking her head in dissatisfaction at how the colors matched while the boys were desperately trying to figure out how one was supposed to act in this situation.

"Hmmmm. Nah. I just do what I want. Call me fluid, uh..." She tapped her chin. "What's a word for...no, that just covers relationships, not sex. Hmm. Meh. Just call me Amorily fluid if you have to call me anything. But really, I'm just Aimei. If it's a net positive it's a net positive, and if it's not what's the point?" She tossed a fry in her mouth and turned her attention back to the two boys whose table we had taken over and claimed for the nation of crazy.

I think the problem with verbally playing with Aimei was she didn't play fair. There were no points to hit. You could bat aside an attack and hit her opening only to find that there was no reaction to the hit itself. She was just…

"You're the most stable person I've ever met." Dean seemed to finish my thought for me, though I and the rest of the table turned to give him an incredulous look.

He held up his hands defensively. "No, I mean, like. Ok, so people have thoughts and ideas and feelings and everything else. They're fluid as they figure things out, slot things into place, or how they interact with each other. But you're like...everything's connected and stable. I'm guessing if you get a new piece of information or something you just slot it in like a lego. Yeah, that's exactly it. Most people are vats of chemicals that constantly shift in balances with new stuff getting tossed in. You're a box of legos."

She nodded. "Yup. Fits pretty well. Though would you say that the older someone is, the more lego like instead of chemical soup like they get, now that you have this perspective lense to look through?"

He gave it some obvious thought, while I mentally slotted it into place myself and started thinking about people in that light. He seemed to come to the same conclusion that I did.

"Yeah, actually, now that you mention it."

"Alright, now re-lens for more introverted vs. extroverted."

He frowned slightly in obvious conversation, and I picked up now.

"Hm. Yeah, I can see that."

She nodded. "Though I seem to be what one would mentally place as a definition of extroversion, which is breaking your mental model, right?"

We both nodded at this, while Dennis seemed content to watch safely from the sidelines.

"Well, first, causation vs. correlation. Introverts do it more, but it's not strictly an introvert thing. Also, if everything else adds up except a few scattered pieces then you just toss them in the outlier bin and call it a day. Dredge them back out for more interesting case studies later. Anyways, it's a multi-fold problem in this case. First, younger brains really are like a vat of random chemical concoctions. Hormones, puberty, all that fun stuff. Also it's an experience and balance thing. Take someone that's never felt pain and then have them stub their toe. It will be terrible because they have no context. Same with emotions. First loves are so strong because of all those teenage chemicals running rampant as well as no context of range that's built up over years of experience."

I frowned. "So you're saying your first love and teen crushes are just so awesome because...what, we haven't been desensitized by context?"

"Yup. Well, partially. Actual mental experience and getting the weight of everything from experience is also a big part of it. It's like...Methylenedioxy methamphetamine is a pretty amazing ride. Sure, do it more than about once a month and your empty serotonin channels will let dopamine flow back up them and react to cause essentially hydrogen peroxide in your brain, but no real negative physical effects if you avoid that. Now on the other hand it makes you feel so good and so strongly that it's quite literally impossible to achieve the same feeling through natural means. Discounting people that get addicted, it still adds context. Say normal life experiences are all on a 1-10 scale, and then this is a 12. Sure, do it rarely so your brain doesn't pattern match it up with everything and it will stay at a 12. Do it frequently enough that your brain reorganizes itself to make it fit the scale and suddenly your 1-10 scale with something like sex being a 10 becomes a 1-10 scale with it being the 10 and your previous 10s dropping to an 8."

She finished off her fries. "So the first time you're in love it breaks your scale at becomes the 12. Over time, you get used to the feeling of love being in your life so it becomes the definition of your 10. But then you build a bunch of life experiences and see how other things stack up in comparisons. Long term achievements, getting a doctorates, saving a life, whatever. Going to be different for different people. Also, all those rampant brain chemicals calm the fuck down as you get older, so that crazy 10 of being in love settles down to an 8. But then so does everything else that's a result of rampant brain chemicals, so your brain reorganizes so all your 8s are the definitions of your 10s and the world is in better context."

She wadded up our joined trash and tossed them in the waste basket several tables over absently. "Hm. Where was I before the sidetrack...oh, right, stable! Well, the point there is, and the secret to being me, is weighing everything. Figure out where you stand, trace your thoughts and beliefs. You feel a spike of emotion, figure out what factors are feeding it. Basically, once you know your own mind then you can start slotting things in rather than random chain reactions sparking things in your head you didn't even realize where there."

She glanced around the table and seemed to mentally chide herself. "Ah, hell. We had one job, people! Light hearted conversation and having fun!"

She thrust her hand, finger extended, abruptly at Dennis. Both him and Dean flinched from the sudden motion, which I suppose was understandable. They didn't have a feel for her the way I did and thus had yet to file everything that she…

…

She was a 12 on our out of context scales. I'd interacted enough with her today to drop her to a 10. Still topping out my scale of socially weird but not breaking my scale. Theirs were still chilling at a shocking 12 every time she did something.

"You there! If you would kindly swap phone information with Taylor. You will be running a game of this "Exalted" for us on Fridays as our schedules permit. Feel free to bring friends up to whatever the game limit is."

I blinked.

He blinked.

And I inwardly grinned as he seemed to stumble along and follow her directions without bothering to stop and actually think things through. Maybe that was a secret to dealing with people? Act like you expected everyone to go along with whatever and they would?

We swapped information and then we all stood to go our separate ways not long after. I glanced at Aimei. In the end, craziness included, this was the best day ever. Nothing could go wrong.

"So, uh. Do you have an actual apartment, or?"

She glanced at me with a smirk. "Not yet. Hm. Wonder how many bad guys I can loot from between now and then? Maybe a down payment on a house?"

I pointedly didn't miss a step. I needed to mentally get Aimei down to an 8 to avoid embarrassing myself completely.

...

AN: SHEPARD! There was supposed to be a conversation about who's the most dangerous villain in the city! What are you doing Shepard?! Fine, but science better be on your agenda next chapter!


	5. Chapter 5

(AN: In case I decide not to do an interlude for it (likely), here's how the conversation between Dean and Armsmaster went:

D: So, apparently bullying is a big deal at Winslow.

A: *Frown* Unfortunate but not surprising.

D: Yeah. Has Sophia mentioned anything to you? I haven't heard anything.

A: No. You think she's ignoring it?

D: *Shrugs* Would fit. People who get bullied are weak and all that. Has better things to worry about like gang recruiting. You know how she works.

A: Indeed.

D: Well, I guess I'll just ask her about it. Maybe we could do a Ward thing over there?

A: *Frown* If she's turning a blind eye to it, I'd rather not tip her off that we were tipped off ourselves. *Drums fingers* Don't trust her not to try and do something about it.

D: You think she'd do something to the girl that told me?

A: I think she's currently on probation for almost murdering several people.

D: *Wince* Fair.

A: Don't worry, I'll handle it. Head to your patrol.

D: Yes sir. *Leaves*

A: *Hits call button.* "Dauntless. Got a job for you. Dust off your cop skills and go undercover as a sub at Winslow tomorrow. Note anything that we should be aware of.)

Note: Consequences of Shepard's derail yesterday actually wind up pushing this story forwards. Who knew?

Theme song for the later part of this chapter: Fly Leaf: Again.

...

Well. The good news of the day was that I had managed to avoid the trio before my computer class this morning. The bad news was that half way through said class I was pulled out and sent to the principals office for reasons unspecified. Along the way I almost made an idiot out of myself staring at a particularly well built man and damned near running into a locker. Fortunately for what little pride I had left to me in this place no one else was in the hallway to see.

But hell. When did they start making subs like that? It should be a crime or something! I mean, how were the girls (and some boys!) going to learn anything in that class today?

I was distracted from my beefcake teacher related musings by actually arriving at my destination. The secretary ushered me into the principals desk. The woman who filled a slot in my mind with such pleasant labels as "useless", "enabler," and "accomplice" was making at effort to look genuinely concerned for me for some reason. She wasn't particularly good at it and it made my heckles raise a little as suspicion set in.

"Ms. Herbert, it's come to my attention that you've had some...difficulties the past few days. The school thinks it would perhaps be for the best if you were given the rest of the week off to get things together." She pointed to a stack of folders. "We have gathered your work for the rest of the week and you'll be expected to have it done by Monday."

I blinked.

"Ok. First off, It's "Hebert." I'd appreciate it if you made at least a token effort when dealing with me. Second, what the hell? You're suspending me for getting bullied?" My voice was steadily raising despite myself.

"No, Miss "Hebert." There was almost a sneer there. "This has nothing to do with bullying. It's clear that your grades are steadily going down and we're giving you the chance to correct this. We're hoping a temporary change of scenery will give you a chance to think things through and straighten up."

I gaped. In the back of my mind I was aware of the bugs in the walls practically vibrating with the rage that I was tossing their way in order to keep my self as calm as possible. It was still a very close thing, though.

"I. YOu. I CAn't" Must. Keep Control.

I took a deep breath.

Then another one.

No. Fuck this.

"IF YOU WOULD ACTUALLY FUCKING DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE BULLYING MAYBE MY GRADES WOULDN'T BE FUCKING TANKED!"

She clenched the desk. "Make that two weeks, Ms. Hebert, and a note in your file. Now leave before I decide that expulsion is the best option in your case."

I'm not going to lie. I damned near lost it. Not in the "Cary" sort of way. I wasn't about to lower myself to using my powers to fuck up normals. But that didn't mean I wasn't very tempted to go over the desk.

Thankfully, outsourcing my emotions seemed to be doing me a fair bit of good in controlling myself. Before one could win out over the other, there was a knock on the door and the beefcake substitute stepped in.

"Sorry Ms. Blackwell. I forgot to ask you where exactly classroom 202 actually is."

If he noticed the tension in the room or my near murderous rage, he failed to comment on it.

Blackwell sighed. "It's two doors down on the second floor from the central stairs." She muttered something that vaguely sounded like "asshat" under her breath.

The man adjusted his glasses slightly and gave her a smile having missed it. "Ah, thank you. Very good. Uh." He turned his attention in my direction and extended his hand. "Sorry to interrupt your meeting Ms.?"

I picked up the folders and stood from the desk to take a step closer to shake his hand while attempting to outsource my chaotic teenage hormones to my bugs. "Uh. Taylor. Taylor Hebert. It's nice to meet you, uh?"

"Roger, Roger Sisco. I guess that's Mr. Sisco today." He withdrew his hand and I noticed that he seemed to have left a card in it. He gave me a slight wink as he turned back to Blackwell. "Is she in my next class? Maybe she can show me up."

Blackwell seemed to actually struggle not to get up and strangle the man, which was bonus points to him in my book. "No. Miss Hebert is something of problem student. We're giving her some time off to get her straightened out."

I didn't almost turn around and make good at going over the desk. I really didn't. It had nothing to do with the hand that set on my shoulder and the comforting look Mr. Sisco gave me. "I'm sorry to hear that. Ms. Hebert, your grades are very important for your future. You should focus on getting them up rather than whatever annoyances are keeping you from doing so."

I blinked. Was he saying what I think he was saying.

"Well. I better get to my class and you better get home. Do your best on those."

We both left the room the room then with him heading towards the stairs and me heading towards the door. He called down to me before I passed out of sight. "My side job, by the way. If you want to talk." And then he was gone.

I pulled out the card he'd slipped me and looked at it. "Huh."

Roger Sisco.

PI.

10 years of police experience.

Well. That's certainly interesting...

...

I didn't bother heading home after leaving school. Instead I did what any teenage girl with a friend should do (squee!) and went over to her place to complain and vent my problems to her. I raised my hand and knocked on the door. After a few moments of shuffling on the other side Aimei tossed open the door. A momentary look of confusion upon seeing me was quickly replaced with concern and then a large welcoming smile.

"Taylor!" She then proceeded to grip me in a tight hug before breaking away.

"Not that it isn't always great to see you but, uh, I'm not sure if skipping school on a regular basis is a good thing for you to be doing."

I huffed in irritation as she allowing me to enter her workshop where I boldly threw myself onto her couch. "Wasn't my choice. Got suspended for a week for my "grades dropping." Got another week for voicing my...displeasure with the ludicrous situation."

Aimei's nose scrunched slightly for a moment in obvious irritation as she tossed me a soda from the fridge. "Hrm. I'd assumed that your tormentors were of at least a reasonable enough intelligence to maintain something resembling plausible deniability from the higher ups. This new info suggests that said higher ups are actively turning their noses away from the problem. Your principal in particular sounds like she's pushed into outright criminal activity with this."

I snorted. "If it could be proven, sure. I've got an entire notebook full of the over a year of harassment that they've pulled on me. Still my word against theirs at the end of the day, though. Plus Emma's dad is a lawyer. He'd crush us if we tried anything. But, I might have an option now."

Aimei walked over and sat down, leaning against the arm rest with one leg on the couch to face me. "Oh?"

I fished the card out of my pocket and handed it to her. "Apparently a substitute teacher we had today moonlights as a PI. He slipped this to me after he walked in on me and Blackwell. I'm pretty sure he'd been ease dropping."

She drummed her fingers on her leg, her face twisted into her usual thinking pose. "Hmmm. So you happen to have a sub that moonlights as a PI show up today. Blackwell happens to suspend you on the same day. He happens to overhear the conversation and shows interest in the situation."

She stood and started pacing. "And this happens the day after I meet you. I don't have any contacts and haven't been active enough that it would be any butterflies on mine."

I nodded. "I'd honestly thought that it might be you playing your hand a bit to help me out, but I guess that answers that."

"Well. I take that back. Might be my butterfly anyways. We met Dean and Dennis yesterday and this happened. Occamus razor said that one of them likely had something to do with this. Money on Dean, he seemed the more serious of the two and super perceptive at that. So Dean goes and tells someone, a family member maybe, about what's going on. Said person either is or knows a PI that's also a certified sub."

She bit her upper lip as she settled into serious thought mode. "Odds that a sub would be needed right after the day all this happened is low. Not impossible, but odds lean more towards having enough pull to get someone sent in than not. Who has pull over a school like that?"

"Uh...the school board, obviously. Maybe the police if there was something serious going on but bullying probably doesn't qualify. Someone in the mayors office could probably pull some strings like that."

She nodded. "Mayors son attends Arcadia. Turns out our new friends Dean and Dennis do as well. Possible that Dean knows and is friends with him. Mayor's son makes some comments to daddy, daddy uses a token amount of political pull to set his sons mind at ease. I could see that. One other possibility I can think of off the top of my head though."

I strained to sort through possibilities, but came up blank on this one and signified as such.

"Not suprising. Pretty far out there, but if there was a Ward at the school the PRT would have more than enough pull with the funding they give schools that host Wards. Dean or Dennis are either Wards themselves or have a family member that is a Ward, Protectorate Hero or in the PRT in some way. Word gets around there's bullying going on where a Ward is supposed to be keeping an eye on things."

A shook my head dismissively at the low chances, but continued the conversation anyways. "Ward, not Wards?"

She shook her head. "One incompetent or uncaring hero is possible. More than one is unlikely if for no other reason than the other or other(s) being witnesses to such. Peer pressure is a bitch. If there's a Ward there it's only one, mark my words on that. They either wouldn't care about your situation or would be part of it, if they were there."

I gawked. "Yeah, I'd say the being friends with the Mayors son is probably what's going on. A Hero watching or being part of bullying?"

She shook her head. "Hero upper case there, not lower case...as silly as that is. Anyways, just because someone is a government recognized Hero doesn't mean that they're a hero. There can be good or bad people in a collective group of Heroes just as much as any other groups. Long as they don't go too far out of line, or don't get caught, the 3 to 1 villain to hero ratio kind of demands the heroes keep those they get. The alternative being toss them in jail and watch them openly fight heroes when they inevitably get out."

I sighed. "Ok. Ok. I can kind of get that. It's pretty shitty, but I can see it. How bad would the city be if someone like Armsmaster got caught doing something shitty and wound up hanging out with Kaiser the next week?"

She nodded. "Nailed it on the head. When you're playing at the delicate balance you have going on here that would be pretty terrible."

I shrugged. "It's a non-issue though. Madison and Emma are both white, and Vista is too young to be either one. I mean, I guess that that Sophia could be Shadow Stalker, but..."

Blink.

Blink.

"SON OF A BITCH!"

Aimei held her hand up. "Alright, before we fly off the handle here, how about we make an effort at verifying. Don't suppose you have a picture of Sophia?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, because I want to keep her close to my heart for ever and ever."

Aimei didn't miss a beat, and grabbed her heart. "Taylor! I thought we had something! I'm hurt that your deicison to experiment with the fairer sex didn't come to me first! I have years of experiance. What does this Sophia have? Are you into sadists? Is that it? I assure you I can bring the pain." She winked at me.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed before leaning over and throwing my backpack at her which she effortlessly caught. No winning with her. None what so ever.

"Maybe I'm just not into older women?"

She stuck her tongue out at me and ran her hands down her chest after putting the backpack off to the side. "Are you kidding me? Have you seen me? This body with my experience? You've no idea what you're missing out on."

"Yeah. That's a good point. You're a mixing pot of depravity. Another reason to stick with people around my own age so I can stay nice and innocent."

A chuckle on her part. "Words that should never be uttered in the same sentence as sex. Ah well, you'll learn. When you're done with this fling with Sophia let me know and I'll show you how to do things right." Another wink.

I finally lost it and blushed, holding out my hands in both defeat and indignation. "Fine, fine. You win. And eww, never ever anything to do with Sophia. And the hell do you mean when?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Runs in the family? I've got fifty down on at least college experimentation for you."

I gawked. "The hell do you mean runs in the family?"

A smirk on her part. "You do realize that one of Lustrums big things was hating guys, right?"

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

It clicked into place and I shuddered. "I...did not need to know that. Thanks." I said dryly.

"No problem. I indevere to make sure that your views of the world is as accurate as possible." She gave me a mock bow before turning to her laptop and running through a few searches.

"Hm. Well, Sophia Hess isn't particularly hard to find. Star track star huh? I suppose between that and Emma's lawyer dad it would do a fair deal to explain the school situation by itself. Now let's see, shadow stalker's wiki picture..."

She clicked something and a projector in the back of the room lit of displaying a carefully chosen picture of Sophia beside Shadow Stalker.

We both staired at them for a minute.

"Well. I doubt that Sophia is the only 5'7 teenage black girl with a hard core runners body in Brockton bay, but..."

I sighed. "Let me guess. Money is on Sophia being Shadow Stalker?"

She nodded. "Yup. I'd make that bet."

I laid back and groaned. "You know, I thought I'd be taking this a lot harder."

She shrugged. "We got the prep work of knocking out the realities of the hero villian situation before hand. Your brain has an existing counter point before the info dump rather than trying to placate it afterwards when it's set on the war path. There's a positive here anyways, if it makes you feel better."

I groaned again. "I don't possibly see what could be good about this."

"Well, the local PRT and Heroes were unaware of the situation. Hence why a day after you talked to someone that has a connection with them a private investigator shows up at your school to look into things. The fact that they took it that seriously..."

She flicked over the the PHO and did another few quick searches. "Ah, yeah. SS here used to be a vigilante. Probably did something and got caught. NEx tthing you know she's in the Wards. Probably a probationary member. Still, risking losing her firepower because if they investigate it they can't just sit on it when shit comes up..."

Another few clicks. And then a few more. To be fair to the PRT, it took her about 20 minutes of shifting through things before she finally continued, while I was taking time to collect myself and distract by playing with bugs.

"Ah, here we go. Power struggle between Director Piggot and Armsmaster over the Wards. They recently got moved over the the PRT building where as in most cities they're based out of the same building as the Protectorate. Suggests some stress there. Armsy there turns up some dirt on Shadow Stalker violating her probation, gives the director a political black eye, and might regain control over the Wards."

I groaned even louder. "So the WARD that's been BULLYING me might finally get dealt with because of POLITICS?"

She nodded. "Welcome to the world kiddo. That's how it works. If it makes you feel better, those outside direct power positions would probably flip their shit. Most Heroes take the hero role pretty seriously. Another brain thing. Take on a role, define yourself by the role, get fun happy chemicals when you stay within the archetype you make for yourself. What that means in practice is that most of them are probably legitimately good guys. Armsy there is the leader though so yeah, for him it might come down to weighing Shadow Stalker being an asset to toss at the bad guys against her provincialities in bullying with politics tipping the scale. Though I'd wager if they knew about the locker even a Leader type tough guy making tough decisions would flinch and bring his halberd down."

I just laid there in the quite for a moment. "I...give me a few minutes to think, please.

She smiled at me and rubbed my knee before going back to studying some things on the 37 pages that she had opened in the past few minutes.

"Ok." I said finally. "So, how about we make sure I've got my mental model straight here. Sophia is Shadow Stalker. At some point she fucked up and got drafted into the Wards on Probation because at the end of the day having a slightly psychotic Hero is still a net win as long as they arn't as bad as what you're fighting. She manages to get away with this because at the end of the day the Heroes are too taxed to keep an eye on her. You accidently drag me into a meeting with some guy that's got a connection to the PRT somehow, and so now they're looking into it and will do something about it through a combination of politics and because at the end of the day most Heroes are heroes. How am I doing?"

She turned from her computer and made a show of thinking it over before nodding. "You've got it mostly right. She's gotten away with it because of incompetence or criminal negligence, though. She's on probation which means she has a probation officer that's supposed to keep an eye on these kinds of things. Either she's reported it and they've ignored it, or."

I sighed. "Or she hasn't, and the local hero org had literally no way of knowing about any of this and for all intents and purpose doing an investigation the second they actually got a wiff of something foul."

She nodded. "Yup. That's about the some of it."

I sighed and tossed a pillow at her. "Goddamnit. I want to be pissed at someone."

She laughed. "Of course you do. Anger is recursively satisfying. That said, feel free to be pissed at trio. Well, mostly Sophia."

I sat up and gave her a quisitive look. "I'm not even going to make the effort at being incredulous with you. So instead, explain to me why Sophia is the problem compared to Emma?"

She stuck her tongue out at me for ruining her fun. "Oh, turns out Emma's dad was involved in Shadow Stalker getting probation instead of jail. Grantee there's some history there. Emma goes from your best friend to psychotic Shadow Stalker hanger on in the duration of you being away at camp for a week? Nah. Girl went through something traumatic, Sophia showed up in Shadow Stalker guise and helped her out. Emma, being a...what were you, 12? 13? at the time? year old girl that went through something traumatic and got saved. Latches on to the figure of power and athority."

She shrugged. "Feel free to be pissed mind you. I'm sure most of the terrorists, enemy operatives, etc. that I put bullets in had reasonable explanations for how they wound up on the other side of my gun. At the end of the day they were still in the wrong, though. Girl probably needs psych help and papa lawyer didn't think his precious little girl needed anything like that. Bad parents ruining children since circa 10,000 BCE."

I held up my hands. "Ok. Ok. Stop, just stop. I can only take so much, and pity for one of my tormentors isn't one of the things I can handle at the moment. Let's...focus on something else. Like...where do I go from here? Yeah, being productive."

She tapped a pencil against her lip. "Well. The Heroes are legitimately cool people for the most part. Dean and / or Dennis are connected with them somehow and you have a tentative friendship there. Shadow Stalker will be getting the can shortly without me even needing to bother to do anything there. Why don't you join the Wards?"

I stood there not responding for a moment in something resembling shock. Rejection. She didn't want me. Of course she didn't want me, so she was pawning me off to a group that took in shadow stalker. After all, even someone as useless as me would be a bonus to the team. -They- could find a use for me, even if she couldn't.

I stood to storm out, most certainly not on the bring of tears, but was halted by a hand on my shoulder. I twisted it off and began to move forwards again when this time I was wrapped in a hug.

"Nope. No running of and being pouty. That doesn't solve anything. Just gives you satisfaction by indulging in a recursive emotion loop. You're going to hang out here until you work everything through and then make a reasonable decision."

I huffed, but didn't bother trying to resist. I knew better than to try and get in the way of a Shepard direction of choice.

"Now. The reason that I was a decent choice yesterday was because the alternative was your school situation, lack of other options, and the fact that you'd be going out as a solo hero. You have a much better option now that we're fairly sure most of the Heroes are probably good people. Wards work reasonable schedules and balance their Heroing with having a normal life. There won't be any of that with me. It's all fun and games right now, but once I get started there isn't going to be any stops. Call it one to two months of constant War and stress. Picking targets, manipulating the situation, occasionally probably even killing people that need to die."

She sighed and laid back on the couch. "Not even the adult heroes put in the kind of time, effort, and stress that will be my life for that time period short of something like the S9 showing up. So going and joining them will be much healthier for your development so that you can develop into the happy young woman that was hanging out with her friends yesterday instead of."

I turned to face her and scowled. "Instead of what, like you? Because that's such a bad thing?"

She gave me a stern look and I almost flinched despite myself. "Damnit, Taylor. Yes. It's bad. People like me exist because we need to exist so that most people don't have to be. You don't have to be, Taylor. There's no reason for you to claw your way to being a Warlord queen of Brockton Bay. You should hang out with your friends, transfer to Arcadia, fix things with your dad. There's no reason"

I cut her off by crouching in front of her so that I could look her in the eyes. "You know. I did reading of my own when I got home. And I put together some of the things that you said. War and struggling for the survival of the galaxy became your norm. This? Normal life? That's what, a 4 on your scale now? Probably the reason you're so blaise about social situations, relationships, and sex. They don't even ping on your radar like a normal person."

"Exactly!" She exclaimed. "And that's why you should do the normal thing. Otherwise, yes. You'll become like me. War will be your normal life, conflict your breakfast. It doesn't -bother- me because it's my norm now. But no one should -willingly- choose to become this deadened to life when there's no reason to do so! This way lies pain, death, and loss!"

I shook my head. "I said I did reading. You didn't explain all the points yesterday. Young peoples heads are like vats for the reasons you stated and also because of neurological plasticity. As you get older everything locks into place and becomes much harder to change. So back then, yeah. You were pretty close to locked into that balance. But you're a teen again! You stated it yourself, all of your chemicals and body and shit are a teenager! That means that this is like a second chance! -YOU- could stop now, live a normal life, and your brain could balance! If you stop now, if you put down the fight, you could enjoy life!"

She sighed and pinched her nose. "I knew you were bright. Didn't expect you to actually put that together and turn it into an argument against me."

I smirked. "Guess you're rubbing off on me. But that's a you argument, not a me argument. Here's the me argument. You had a team, then. You're alone, now. I'm guessing you probably wouldn't have succeeded without a team?"

She clicked her tongue. "Psh. I'm damned awesome. But, you're right. Without them, without people like Garrus, Tali, Miranda, Jack...yeah. I wouldn't have pulled it off."

I nodded. "And that's my reason." I pushed her down into a hug. "Say that you'll quit, and sure. I'll go join the Wards, no problem. But if you're going to keep doing what you do you need backup. I'm not going to let you go off and get killed so I can be normalish. I'll make that trade for your life."

She pushed me back so our heads were separated by a few inches and looked me in the eyes. "Taylor, I can't ask you to make that sacrifice."

I smirked. "Seems like you're asking me not to. And I'm deciding to ignore it. It's my life, Aimei. I'll decide what I do with it. Are you going to tell me I can't determine my own actions."

She sighed, and closed her eyes. "I think I'm rubbing off on you entirely too much."

She opened them back up and smirked at me. "Hmm. Special situation we find ourselves in. You know, this is normally the park where you kiss me? You've already got the physical proximity, the heat of our flaring emotions, and your basically declaration of your love to me..."

I didn't pull away. I stared her in the eyes. She wanted to turn this back into our usual type of banter, I was fine with that. But I wasn't going to lose this round, even if I couldn't actually win it. Instead I went with shock value and moved in to do exactly that.

She dodged and kissed me on the cheek instead before pushing me and causing me to fall into a pile on the floor while she clicked her tongue. "Nuh uh. Taboos are serious shit. This ride is closed until your next birthday. Come back then and we'll talk about it."

She stood up and made a show of dusting herself off while I groaned on the floor.

"Now get up. If we're going to do this, we're going to do this right. Step 1: Science! Step 2: Raiding the Rig. Onwards!"


	6. Chapter 6

AN: I have a confession to make. After 6 hours of research: Ballistic physics and material properties are goddamned hard without access to someone that knows these things to distill them down to the relevant points for me. As such, there will be a -lot- of handwavium this chapter.

1: Linear ratio of Energy dispersion to Elasticity.

1b: Bullets will use real world physics / math because those are easy to find / use.

2: A 9mm round impacts against an area of 50x50mm, and increasing / decreasing ratios based on bullet sizes from there. I'd thought that comparing Pascal / joule ratings (Which are measured in m^3) down to their values at mm^3 and then scaling back up to the impact area of a given bullet would provide accurate numbers.

They do not. (Probably because even though the bullet only impacts that area it's energy is still distributed to a larger area...which is kind of the point of body armor, now that I think about it.)

A 50x50x5mm(5mm being the standard thickness of type II Kevlar vests) provides a 45,000 Pascal Strength rating for a type II Kevlar vest, which is about twice the strength needed to stop it. This seems reasonable for type II Kevlar vs. a 9mm. Using the same handwavium math, a .50 AE will impact an area 44% larger (needing to overcome 65000~ Pascals of resistance) and defeat the armor as it hits with 105,000~ Pascals of force.

A 5.56 x 45 NATO round (M16) strikes an area 55% the size that a 9mm round does (24750 Pascals) and overcomes it with 62,000~ Pascals of force.

So my handwavium math seems to hold up.

...

"Alright, just a simple test at first. I'm guessing outside of generic senses you haven't experimented much with bugs in that way, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I've been more interested in getting them to do things. I mean, I've been working on trying to see and hear better through them, but it's a slow process thus far."

Aimei nodded. "I did some research after you left yesterday. Bugs are rocking different senses at different levels than humans. It's probably going to be a case of you adapting to interpreting the information. One thing I want you to test now is playing around with that. I think if we isolate some of the things that would normally register as noise to you you'll be able to make more sense of things."

She pulled out a box and opened it up. "Now I want you to pay specific attention to..."

"Oh. Ohhh wow." I cut her off, paying particular to the insects in the indicated box. I had them fly out and form a group so that I could focus on just one direction and isolate their vision in particular, and what I was seeing was...confusing, at first.

"Well, good to know my hunch about you being able to interpret other kinds of signals was right. Of course, it makes sense here. There have been humans who after eye surgery have been able to..."

"Shhh." I murmured. "Less tangent more explaining please."

She grumbled. "Fine, fine. Ok, so Dragonflies, obviously. They kinda have ultra HD vision. Human eyes rely on 3 different kinds of chromats. Red, Green, Blue. Dragonflies have anywhere from eight to thirty two. I'd imagine all of this got lost as background noise, but now..."

I nodded while looking on in wonder. "Yeah. Now that I've got a feel for it, I shouldn't have any problem with them when they're in groups. It's like hearing a song in noise once you know what the song is. Hm. Part of this seems familiar..." I rubbed my temple in thought for a moment before snapping my fingers. "Oh! Ultraviolet, right?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Dragonflies and bees can both see ultra violet. Bees do it as a pollination thing. I think Dragonflies in particular should be useful for recon stuff. They have fantastic motion senses and night vision on top of everything else"

"Ohhh. Neat. Ok, yeah. I'm letting my attention drift back out and I can definitely see that now that I know what I'm looking for." I was getting giddy. This was awesome!

"Alright, next up." She opened the next box and I directed the bugs, bees this time, to fly out.

"Alright, you already told me about the ultraviolet. I guess there's something else I should pay attention to?"

"Yeah. A little weirder this time, not sure if you'll be able to pick up on it. Uh. Try to look for any "noise" you don't have a context for, maybe?"

I let the dragonflies float to the back of my subconscious as I turned my full attention to the bees. I felt out their senses one by one, paying attention to the data that was coming in. I frowned slightly. There was definitely something there. Something like a tingle that I just...couldn't place.

"I'm definitely getting something. I'm not quite sure..."

She gestured towards a small sheet of metal she'd laid on the table and I nodded, directing them to float over towards it. As they got close to it, I noticed the feel of the tingle change a little and my eyes widened.

"Magnetic sense? That's really...weird, but neat! Ok, consider that bit of noise classified. I can handle it now that I know what it is. Hm...there's something else to it, though." I flew them around a bit, testing it. There was a constant input coming from it, just heightened near magnetic things. Which would mean...uh...

"Ah! The earth's magnetic field, right?"

She set the page on bees she had pulled up on to the projector. "Got it exactly right! Yeah, duel package there in addition to their ultra violet senses. Your power is quite extraordinary. Ok. Last one for the day."

I turned my attention fully on the last box before she could indicate as such. It really only took me a second to notice as I could "see" where her hand was on the box even before she opened the box. My mouth fell open a bit.

"Heat vision? What kind of bugs have heat vision?"

She flipped pages, displaying one on beetles of the _Melanophila genus._

"Fire beetles, as it turns out." She said with some amusement, which I shared.

"Noted and filled away. Ok, yeah. That last one is super useful, thanks!"

She walked over and messed my hair. "Tisk. I can't believe you were self conscious about your ridiculous power. I'm sure there's more crazy input information. Things like monarch butterflies knowing where to migrate to between generations. But these were the most useful ones I could find in a quick search between doing different things."

I gave into an impulse to hug her. "No, this is totally enough. Like, wicked cool and everything!"

And it really was. Now that I knew what each of the previous "noises" were, they were clear as day. All sorts of crazy senses beyond the realm of mortal men (without expensive equipment) were open to me constantly. Shepard was right about my sheer data processing. Could a human brain even handle this kind of input if you skipped the not having senses for it, or was it my power doing it for me? Probably not important at the end of the day.

"Yeah. We should probably get you some ogre spiders at some point. 100x the night vision of a human. Better than owls, even."

I nodded. "Using different tools for different things, right? Heat vision works fine for spotting things that are warmer like people against the background or things people recently dropped and stuff, but having something with really good night vision will help me pick up important details."

She smiled at me. "We'll make an infiltrator out of you yet. That's the gist. It's even better with you, seeing as you don't need to switch around. Have all the senses in an area and you're instantly getting all the feedback and somehow making sense of it all."

"I guess I'm better off in more of a support role, then? I can use all these awesome senses to generate a better 3D map of an area than anyone else could possibly handle and coordinate people..."

Aimei shook her head. "Taylor, no. I mean yes, you can. But your limits are...you are basically a one woman army within your range. So you have a perfect map. Awesome, you know where all the guards are. A few minutes later, they're all disabled by crippling pain via dozens of bullet ants."

I winced. "I'm guessing they're called that because they feel like being shot?"

She grinned. "We humans are pretty creative when naming things, aren't we? Anyways, if you don't care if they live, you can bite them with a bunch of black widows or brown recluses. If we do a little leg work, you can make that Brazilian wandering spiders. Speaking of legwork..."

"Yeah, I know. Madagascar. Can I use your tablet? I've been meaning to do research on this, and you can probably help me with it."

She smiled at and handed it over. I pulled up some web pages I'd looked at before and an excel sheet so I could input my data on the projector.

Kevlar: 3620 MPa / 50 MJ/M^3.

Darwin Bark spider: 1652 MPa. / 520 MJ/M^3

Black Widow Spider Silk: 1000 MPa. / 260 MJ/M^3

"As you can see, Kevlar has a much higher Strength, but Spider Silks can absorb much more energy. So overall they're able to stop impacts better."

Shepard held out a hand an did a so/so motion. "Yes and no. Ballistics and material Sciences was naturally part of military engineering courses. If you stretched out a sheet of each on a line and shot at them, yeah, the silk would stop rounds with more energy behind them. The problem is how they do it. Bullet proof materials like Kevlar specifically have a high Strength and low elasticity. Basically, they stop much less energy than the spider silks, but they do it over a much shorter distance. Kevlar does it over a 5% elasticity. Spider silk does it over 35%. That's fine if you have something like a net, or spider web. But"

I drummed my fingers with some irritation. "But if the material is right up against the body...Kevlar either stops a bullet or fails and it punches through. Spider silk is going to stretch however far it takes to stop the bullet or until it fails. But while it will stop a much stronger round than Kevlar ultimately, it's going to push a pocket of spider silk through your body in the process even if the silk doesn't break your body will. And it might even do that with a less powerful round."

I pulled up a page with common bullet energy values and punched them into my spreadsheet factoring in elasticity.

"A 9mm hits with about 24,000 Pascal's in a cross section of about...9mm, because of course it does. If I Weave the black widow silk in a satin pattern, it should have a tensile strength of about 25,000 Pascal's in the same area. So I'd trust it to small arms fire, 9mm and down. Darwin's in the same weave would get me up to...36,000. Since Kevlar II is rated at 45,000 in the same area, the Darwin's should be good for anything that isn't a hand canon. Not that the Kevlar would stop that either."

Shepard smiled. "Good job. Proud of you for doing your research on this. An advantage the spider silk has is that if a hollow point that would get through Kevlar anyways hits you it will trap the fragments." She tapped her chin. "Better against knives and crossbows than Kevlar as well. Hardened metal won't disperse it's energy the same way softer things like handgun bullets will meaning that you treat it as a smaller impact area. At that point, your better energy elasticity holds up more while the Kevlar threats will be sliced through."

I gave her the biggest smile I could manage, and she responded by squinting at me. "What do you want?"

"Well..." I started typing again, pulling up a few pages. "I originally just filled these away as curiosities because I didn't see myself having the means to get them anytime soon, but."

She looked over the pages I'd pulled up and her mouth fell open slightly before her eyebrows raised. "Ok. The beetles I get. It's weird, but nature does some crazy things."

"Limpet teeth." I muttered under my breath. Unfortunately, I'd be able to harvest them only slightly better than a normal person anyways and I wouldn't have the slightest idea how to process them.

"But yeah. We can certainly get you enough of these ironclad beetles for you to make some trauma plates out of them. You'd really be better off just going with standard military ceramics but I know how you capes like to keep your themes. Still, if these numbers are right the plates should shrug off a single battle rifle round before shattering. Wouldn't help against snipers, though."

While she was talking, I noticed that her eyes hadn't left the other page and she was silent for a few moments before shaking her head. "What has science raught?" She murmured with some amusement. "But no, seriously? They just decided one day "hey, let's spray down some spiders with nanotube water and see what happens?"

"And then the spiders were like "Thanks guys!" And made nanotube spider silk." I cut in with a grin. "And the best part is, they're not even sure how that works!"

"Yeah...fuck. That's some serious shit. It will stop anything up to the point where the high ends of what it stops are going to splatter your insides from residual kinetic energy anyways. If we get some of that, and then toss some hard materials over your vitals, you'll be as bulletproof as a human can get short of putting you in a tank. Well, discounting when we get you a kinetic shield, at any rate."

A shot her a questioning look. "I'm going to guess that's exactly what it sounds like on the tin?"

She nodded. "More or less. Minor draw back on only being useful against things moving at a velocity of 800 m/s or over. Still, that would handle any rifles so long as the barriers are up and your biosuits would easily handle any small arms fire and do wonders with blades. Hm. Yup. When we get up and running we'll be bulletproof in the literal sense. I was actually worried about small arms when I realized how much slower firearms were here, but with this..."

She turned away from the screen and walked over to me before pulling me into a hug. "Taylor. Hax. So. Much. Goddamned. Hax. Literally perfect recon and interpretation. Can assassinate or disable with enough stealth to make an STG operative jealous. Can make badass armor as a side project while doing other things. And we haven't even gotten into the ways I wanted to experiment in using you!"

To my credit, I just chuckled even as a warm feeling flowed through me. Was someone like Shepard singing my praises? Telling me how awesome my power was? Well, not me, but my power was mine and was part of me, so that part was at least...

I felt something bite my ear and stumbled back to fall on the couch, holding the nipped lobe. "You bit me!" I gave her my most incredulous look. "What the hell?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I told you I can smell your self deprivation. Not a pleasant scent. No self pity on my watch. Sure, you got a ridiculous power. But who put in all the effort into doing this research? Studying up on ballistic physics and material properties to do the best she could with it? Who spent hours and hours looking into the best bugs for the job in making your costume? I'd imagine you've even already started working on the costume, haven't you?"

I shuffled a bit.

"See? You got handed a fantastic power and you're already well on your way to using it the best you can. You didn't get handed something simple like "I SHOOT LAZERS! RAWR!" No, you got a power that actually requires planning and thought and you've been putting that planning and thought into it. So. None. Of. That."

I sighed. "Fine. Fine."

She shook her head. "Nope. I want to hear you say "I'm awesome.""

"I'm awesome." I replied flatly.

She just continued to stare at me.

"I'm awesome!" I exclaimed this time.

She walked over and affectionately tossled my hair. "And you better damned well believe it. Now, just for that, I'm only going to do the initial test I wanted. You're more than bright enough to figure out the rest from there."

I shrugged. "Ok, sure. I can manage."

She gestured at 5 screens she'd set up on the back wall at some point.

"I want you to gather five small groups of bugs in front of each monitor."

I did so, making sure to have a dragonfly in each group to make sure I could actually read said monitor.

"Good, now, when you have each answer, land that many bugs on the screen."

Before I could ask for clarification, she pressed a button. The screens came on with the following displays:

"1+1"

"5-2"

"9+3"

"20*5"

"81/9"

Almost without thinking about it, the I had the bugs departed from their groups and land on the screens simultaneously a few seconds after they turned on.

I stared at Aimei with my mouth open this time.

"Bullshit." She said shaking her head. "So. Much. Bullshit."

This...this changed everything.


	7. Chapter 7

I yawned as I took a bite of my sandwich and then a sip of my tee. This shop was pretty good. I'd have to keep it in mind in the future as it was within an easy walking distance of Aimei's place. Speaking of within easy walking distance; While my physical body was enjoying eating a delicious sandwich and tea, a large part of my seemingly infinite multitasking was centered on a building two blocks away.

"Left door, two down. One guy, pistol in his belt getting something off a shelf uh...three meters in and to the left. Couch between you and him. Unaware anything's going on."

This was communicated sub vocally on a neat little device Shep had rigged up for me. between bites. We'd done some brief chatting about designing a tactical communication system with having a few bugs ride along on her body but hadn't hammered out the details on that yet. For now, we were sticking to more simple means of communication.

"Got it. I'm thinking bee. You thinking bee?" She replied, and I watched from my point of view as she lined up with the door. As she was doing so, I had a bee slip in an open window a little ways away from him and suddenly fly in his face.

He let out a startled yelp as he stumbled backwards which was a signal that Aimei took to toss the door open. She crossed the distance between herself and the stunned guy as he turned to face the door. A quick twist put her in his blind spot and an application of her taser put him on the ground and sent a tingle through the air and my bee. A brief thought made me wonder if there was something to the different waves we used in modern society having something to do with the dwindling honey bee population... she finished zip tying the guy while I was mulling it over.

I absently watched as Shepard finished looting the cash and drugs while giving her an all clear. I watched her smile and nod in the direction of one of my bugs. "I think that's enough for the day. Enough cash and drugs to fill my duffle bag and all the baddies in the building are ready for police pickup."

I frowned as she started making her way to the exit while shooting a text over to the crime tip line. "I'm still no sure on this whole reselling drugs thing."

She sighed. "Yeah, I figured that my bother you with your school and all. The point basically breaks down to this: 1: People are going to do it anyways, so profit. 2: You tend to only see the worst of it, the people that turn to them in order to feel something positive in a world that's anything but. You don't see the people that are upstanding responsible members of society who do certain things as a hobby. That's where these are going." I could tell she was doing her usual musing face even without looking at her. "That's without even comparing them to something that's "socially acceptable" like alcohol. Nanoweave spidersilk won't buy itself..."

She paused for a moment as she claimed out a window on to a far escape. "Look, I'll make you a deal. I'll tell you each of what I grabbed later and you can do your own research into the chemical effects on brains, short term and long term effects, etc. IF you still have a moral problem with it after having a solid grounding in facts then I'll drop this avenue of money making for now. Keep in mind that when we're the Warlord Queens of the Bay it will be a required thing, though."

I grumbled, but accepted the situation for what it was. When we got back to her place I'd do my own studies. Shepard would never take an uninformed position seriously but if I made a decision contrary to hers despite having all the facts then she would accept that.

Ten minutes later she'd dropped off the bag at her place and had shown up to meet me as I finished off my fries wearing an outfit that wouldn't have been out of place on a skater chick.

"Hey Taylor!" She greeted me cheerfully for the benifit of anyone that might overhear. "Ready to go?"

I gave her a hug, only partially for the benifit of onlookers. "Sure! I just finished up here."

She grabbed me by the arm and started pulling me away. Once we were out of eyesight of the place I frowned slightly. "So. Where exactly are we going?"

"Mall." She answered simply.

I gave her one of her trademark eyebrow raises.

"Why?"

"Because I just got more money I can stand to drop a little bit of some stuff."

I rolled my eyes this time. "Stuff like what?"

She grinned. "Well. Normally I'd be quite enthusiastically browsing weapon and armor mods. Somehow, I doubt that's an option at the moment."

I chuckled. "Yeah, I can see it going over well when the 16 year old skater girl drops in the gunshop and starts expertly browsing their wears."

She flashed me a grin. "It would be fun! I haven't gotten to shoot something in sooo long. And there's all these antique guns just waiting for me to get my hands on them! But yeah. Bit higher profile than I'm looking for at the moment. I'll do it in costume sometime after my name's already out there."

I shook my head in amusement. Because showing up in costume, probably as a super villain at that, would be a much better option.

"But yeah, no. I'm thinking nose ring. Also need to get my hair trimmed a bit. Split ends are a bitch."

I blinked. "That seems...incredibly mundane."

Another flash of a grin. "Well, of course. I mean, sure. I didn't do it while I was in the military. Or saving the galaxy. But that's because there were way more important things that needed my attention every waking moment. Right now, there's not. Which means I can indulge my rebellious teenage whims and get a nose piercing. Suck it mom. Down with the man. All that."

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Fine. Fine. Let's go indulge in a little teenage rebellion."

"That's the spirit!" She tossed her arm around her shoulder. "We can get matching ones! And you know, you'd look great with a shorter hair cut. Hmm. I'm thinking blue. Yeah, you could rock blue."

Why? Why couldn't I manage to go a single conversation with her without gaping. "But. I mean. What?"

I closed my mouth and shut up so I could compose my response in order to speak without looking like an idiot. "I've never really changed my hair. It's...me? I mean, it's the only thing good genes I actually got from my mom and my feminine trait..."

She pulled the arm over my shoulders a bit tighter into a hug. "Shh. It was just a thought. I wasn't telling you to. I just thought you'd look cute with it and all."

I sighed. Yeah, she was just being friendly like...well, having a friend was supposed to be like, really. I could see me and Emma having this exact same conversation if we'd made it this far together. And maybe it would be fun to change my hair once. I mean, hair grew back. It wasn't like it would be a permanent change...

"...and I've been thinking about that a bit lately." She was continuing on some point while I was distracted in my thoughts. "I could come over and sit down with you and your dad and get things straightened up there."

My mind instantly jumped to how such a situation would play out.

"Hey Danny, mind if I grab a drink? Thanks! Now, Taylor's my friend so this bothers me. Your wife died. That sucks. You know what sucks more? You being like 12 and your mom dying. So we're going to sit here until you wrap your mind around that and we get this situation worked out."

I shuddered involentarily. "Erm. No. No. That's fine, like more than fine, like...yeah. I can handle it myself. Growing up and stuff, right?"

She gave me a sad smile. "Sure, if you feel that way. It's your family Taylor."

I gave her a reassuring one in return. "Yeah. It's for the best. Definitely for the best."

We arrived at the mall not too much later. Ultimately, I did go through with Aimei's suggestion. A few hours later and we were walking through the food court and I was strangely satisfied every time I caught sight of my blue pixie cut and nose ring in reflections. It was different but...different definitely felt good.

As we left the building and crossed the parking lot my confidence level was a few steps up from where it had been. I had new clothes that I rocked, a fun new hair cut and piercing ("No, Aimei, my well of teenage rebellion is most certainly not intense enough to warrant a tattoo or more exotic piercing!"). I looked good. Hell, I felt good.

I spotted Dean and a small group of people heading towards the mall and I gave him a, honestly for the first time in a long time, natural smile and wave.

He smiled back...

And that was when the dread settled in. The raw terror. The existential threat on my life. I half froze and half stumbled back, landing on my ass, as my eyes darted around before eventually landing on a blonde floating from the group and rapidly approaching us. Glory Girl. I'd somehow pissed off Glory Girl and she was going to kill me. She was giving a death stare in our direction and everyone was flinching away from her and Dean was yelling and I was going to die

There was a load crack and some part of my mind absently noted that guns sounded nothing in real life like they did in TV shows especially when you were right next to one.

Glory Girl looked stunned and paused for a second a few meters away from us before outrage settled on her features. I turned just enough to get a look at Shepard and felt my blood run a bit cold. Logic started to reassert itself as my emotions offloaded themselves. I was still viscerally terrified, but I was also very very good at multitasking now that the shock was removed.

I reacted to primal, life threatening fear by flinching. Wavering between flight or fight with flight winning out against someone like Glory Girl. How did Shepard respond to such situations.

Apparently by trying to put a bullet in it.

Now that it wasn't T-0 seconds in and more like T-3, initial shock to the onslaught of fear had faded slightly. Shepard's face was cold, very cold, a look I hadn't seen on her thus far. She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye with some concern. I saw it flicker to releif for a moment, then to consideration, then to a slight smirk I recognized as her picking a direction as she looked past Glory Girl at the group she'd been with.

I caught where her eyes had jumped and felt my heart skip a few beats. Panacea was there. Well, Glory Girl was, so that made sense. What could Shepard be plotting that involved...oh. Oh no.

T-6. I try to say something, but as Aimei levels a challenging gaze on Glory Girl things escalate too fast. Glory Girl crosses the distance and slams a hand into Aimei's arm sending the gun flying before backhanding her with a sickening crunch.

T-8. Shepard lands on her back a few feet away with blood flowing from her obviously broken nose with Glory Girl stalking towards her.

T-10. Bugs that had been answering my call since the fear hit are densely forming in nearby trees. I'm standing protectively over Shepard with my arms outstretched. She's not stopping from taking a step forwards and raises her hand.

T-12. "Jesus Fucking Christ Vicky!" There's pounding on the pavement as both Panacea and Dean are running over.

T-13. Glory girl pauses.

T-18. Dean grabs her. Panacea shoots her a very angry look as she moves past.

T-20. "This fucking bitch hits on my boyfriend, and when I decide to give her a piece of my mind she fucking shoots me."

"Vicky, you can't just..."

I've put the pieces together by this point, and I level my gaze on her. "Yes. I'm sure that it had nothing to do with you flooding the area with some kind of pants slightingly terrifying feeling. How's the PRT feel about Supers using their powers against normals again?"

She actually flinches slightly from this before crossing her arms, a dirty look on her face. "That doesn't change the fact that she fucking tried to shoot me!"

I wave my arms. "You're fucking bullet proof. EVERYONE KNOWS YOU'RE FUCKING BULLETPROOF! That was a non-superpowered persons way of telling you to back the fuck off when you're throwing powers around!"

Panacea sighs at this point and tosses a glare and where Dean is holding Glory Girl. Was that a hint of jealousy? Well, he was a pretty good looking guy. Seemed like a decent sort, too. "Look. I can get your friend healed up and we can call this a misunderstanding. Her aura freaked her out and she shot her. Things understandably escalated from there."

I gave her a disbelieving look. I'd admit I wasn't fully up on all the hero ins and outs, but. "You're kidding me? She makes Aimei and me terrified for her life and when she reasonably responds to that she fucking breaks her nose? She's not even a criminal! How many people has she put in the hospital?!"

There's a wet chuckle from the ground. "None. Panacea is her sister, remember?"

To my credit, it only takes that a second to click. Another for it to overwrite my preexisting assumptions about heroes. Shock and anger probably flicker across my face. "You're literally immune to anything random assholes can do to you. What the hell is wrong with you? You're a hero!"

She snorts in response. "They're bad guys, and it's hard to hold back all the time. Who cares if they get a little banged up. I'm not going to sit here and listen to you tell me..."

Panacea cuts her off. "No. No you are. Fuck, Vicky. I've been trying to tell you this shit for over a year now. And now, this? She's not even a criminal. You. Need. To. Fucking. Stop."

She huffs indignantly before pushing Dean away and then flying off, a small crack of a human sized object breaking the sound barrier echoing shortly after she leaves the ground.

Another sigh from the healer. "Look. Can I just heal you and we can put this behind us? After this, she isn't going to be able to avoid mom. I can promise nothing like this will happen again."

Another wet chuckle from Shepard. "Nuh uh. I trust you, but this is more than a little fucked up."

Panacea gives her a resigned look. "I thought it would be something like that. What are you going to do, sue? Take it to the press? I always knew something like this would happen eventually."

Shepard shook her head slightly and I winced at the small cracking sound in the process. "Nope. Going to extort you, actually. Couple of favors besides healing me, nothing illegal. And I'm stealing you for a girls night out tonight."

Panacea turned to give me a disbelieving look which I made a point of fully returning. We both then turned said look on Aimei.

She shrugged slightly. "Sounds like fun, doesn't it?"


	8. Chapter 8

AN: Taylor / Amy will not be a pairing in this fic. Not because I have anything against it, but because in Fics that actually go the distance it seems to be by far the most common pairing I've read.

Also, for last chapter:

Was towards the edge of the parking lot. Should have made that more clear. On the edge of their jurisdiction. Mall cops will be more than happy to let that be the Police's problem.

Police get the call. "Oh. Glory Girl's involved? Sounds like a PRT problem. Let me give them a call."

"Well, is Glory Girl dealing with a normal person or a villain?"

"Dunno. Do you really want me to send out regular cops when their might be a villain?"

"*Sigh* Fine. Dispatching a PRT team. Let me get on dispatch with whoever's working the console as see if there's any heroes that can respond."

"Console, we've got an altercation between Glory Girl and an unknown perp outside the mall. Do you have anyone that can respond?"

*Vista's working the console, because Hey Missy! is the best* "This is Vista on console. Let me check."

*Looks at current patrols to figure out who's best to call while also ringing up Dean on her phone since he's probably there but wasn't mentioned.*

"Hey Missy, little tense over here."

"Sit rep so I can pass it on to the team going in."

"Team? Oh, shit, yeah. Uh. Situations dealt with. No casualties. You can call off the team."

*Frown* "Armsmaster and Piggot won't like that."

"*Sigh* I know. Look, I'll explain when I come in."

"Alright." *Hangs up*

"Dispatch, situation has been resolved. No outstanding issues or casualties, you can stand down."

Or something like that, handwaviumed to work.

...

The three of us found ourselves sitting around a coffee table in Shepard's warehouse. Panacea, Amy, had seemed dubious but had begrudgingly come along anyways. To be honest I was surprised she'd agreed at all. Shepard had outright stated that she was extorting Amy into it. I was pretty sure if Amy had rejected it then Shepard would have shrugged, let her heal her, and called it a day. Instead she found herself sitting down for tea with the best healer in the world.

Without thinking about it, I realized that I voiced my curiosity on the subject aloud.

She just sighed. "Seemed reasonable enough, I guess. I always knew that Vicky was eventually going to run into trouble with the way she's acting just. If having to use my powers for something is the cost than it was better this than her or some gang member going to the press against New Wave. And I figured she just wanted privacy for it."

Shepard blinked, the one that I recognized as her "Wait, how do normal people think again?" blink, before responding slowly. "I wouldn't have done that."

Amy shot her a look. "Really? What exactly were you extorting me with then?"

Another blink. "I dunno? Your own morals or something? Seemed like a good idea at the time. New Wave are heroes. You guys do good work. It's important for people to see that their options aren't just being villains or drafted into the Protectorate. Having Indepedants that look good is good for morale and having less Capes turn Villian. Important for rougeing to look good too, thinking about it." She drummed her fingers. "Need to add that to the list."

Because of course Shep had Panacea in her place and was mulling over socio-impacts of different groups of capes.

"Oh! Right!" She stood up suddenly from her spot and walked to where she had the fridge. A few moments later she was back carrying small tubs of ice cream for each of us. She handed one to me, which I took without question, and one to Amy, who took it while giving her a rather confused look.

"What? I said I was kidnapping you for a girls night. Well, ice cream is part of that!"

"Thanks." She deadpanned, but started eating some of her ice cream anyways.

"Not that this isn't the most polite kidnapping I've ever been involved in." she said after a few moments. "But what, exactly, do you want?"

"You've been kidnapped?" A blurted before I could catch myself. I gave her a sheepish look, but she just shrugged. Girl must have attended the Shepard school of social jading at some point.

"Sure. I'm Panacea. Of course I've been kidnapped to heal one person or another. Don't get me wrong, no one's ever been dumb enough to actually hurt me, and they always give me back eventually. Really, it's kind of another unwritten rule. Don't unmask capes. Don't go after capes in their Civ identities. Don't take advantage of a helpless opponent. Don't do anything that would impact Panacea's ability to heal." She gave a bitter chuckle at that. "It's almost like a constant Endbringer truce."

I nodded. I could see it. Panacea was the best healer in the world. That made her a crazy good resource for both heroes and villains at Endbringer fights if nothing else. Doing something to her would have everyone out for your blood.

"Anyways." She continued, after more ice cream... she began, before cutting herself off. It seemed that her mind had finally adapted back to reality, because she stared at Aimei. "And let me heal that already."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Do you want to heal it?"

"Of course I want to heal it." She snapped. "It looks irritating and I can fix it."

The response was a shrug. Lots of those going on with those two in the same room. "Sure, no problem. It's just cartilage, I've had much worse. You can take care of favor one while you're at it, if you don't mind."

Amy rolled her eyes and reached over. "And what's that? Bigger boobs or something equally silly?"

A shake of the head. "Nah. Just turn off my reproductive system. Periods are a pain that I could do without and I've got too much on my plate to worry about other complications. Was just going to take something for it but if you're here I can skin the whole fucking with my body chemistry while I'm still a teenager part."

To Amy's credit, there was only about a half second pause in her reaching forwards. She touched Shepard to heal her, and I presumed to apply a modification I had no previous idea I wanted but was suddenly very envious of, and froze.

From where I was sitting I could see her eyes slowly widening. "What...what are you? I mean, who made you? I mean, what the hell?"

She fell backwards against the couch.

"Huh. Oh, yeah. I guess being able to sense someone's biology would be a requirement for healing them. Well, if you need to actively do it, anyways...Taylor!"

I looked over at her and thought it through. She'd decided, and I agreed, that my power lended itself very well to intelligence work. Part of that, as it turned out, was actually learning to think things through. Reject things that are taken at face value and actually work out facts myself to their logical conclusions. So I turned my attention to this.

What did I know about Panacea? She healed. That's what was her power. Well, how? Some kind of regeneration effect? Hm...no. That wouldn't work on cancer, the cancer would just rapidly spread. Some kind of time reversal? Closer. Reverse cancer to before it was cancer. Reverse a wound to before it was a wound...but if I remembered right, she'd been quoted as advising patients not to tax themselves due to their body needing to pull resources from muscles and such.

Forcing the body into a changer state didn't work. DNA extrapolation might but she wouldn't need to actually analyze the body to do something like that. Which meant...

I snapped my fingers. "Biokinesis, probably."

Shepard thought about it before nodding. "Seems like a good fit. What would you wager on it?"

"Hm. 8/10, probably. There's a few other close matches that might work with a little tweaking, and there might be something I'm completely overlooking."

She grinned at me. "You're already pretty good at this kind of thing. Sharp. I love having less work."

Panacea was just leaned back against her seat looking at the two of us horrified. "You...how...I'm not...!" She looked wild eyed at both of us. "Please don't tell anyone!"

Shepard blinked. "You mean...that wasn't just one of those things no one bothered to mention?"

I shook my head. "No. It's just always been accepted that Panacea is a healer. Which I guess doesn't make sense when you think about it. Powers don't, like, do that. Healing is a really complicated process with lots of chemicals and stuff. Like, it has to do it along some kind of vector, right? Like there's that cape that can take injuries on to himself, and Othella can give a regeneration effect. But what is "healing" exactly?"

A nod. "Yeah. Good thinking. I wouldn't give it the benefit of the doubt on that alone, but if it was just a healing effect..."

"She'd have no reason to need to actually see the details, yeah."

She looked back and forth between the two of us like we were insane. Though, to be fair to her, I suppose that we might be.

"This. This doesn't even bother you, does it?"

Aimei chuckled while I responded. "Last I checked, you were a super awesome healer, not unleashing doomsday plagues."

She grumbled and replied with bitterness. "But I could."

"That's...wow. That's some bagage. All day every day saving lives, and you're worried you -could- do something terrible?" I would have laughed if it wasn't so serious. "Shepard here -could- go out and shoot random people with a gun. She doesn't. I -could-...uh, do really bad things. But I don't. Point is, anyone -could- do terrible things. You can't be upset or carry a burden for something that you -could- do. That way lies insanity."

Another grumble and a huff. "You just don't understand."

I stared at her with some incredulity. This was -Panacea-. What the hell could be dragging her down like this? Think. Think. Ok, it can't be other heroes, that would be silly. Villians know better. No one at her school would. Her sister seems to adore her, from what I understand. Something like this would have to be, uh, long term? Whatever the word for that is, yeah. Deep rooted and all that.

Family, probably. Not physical abuse. Emotional, then. Probably not outright, I doubt Glory Girl would stand for it with that temper of hers.

Aimei was saying something to her, but I wasn't paying attention. I was pulling up New Waves bios to see if I could get anything from there.

Ok. Reject what I think I know, only look at what I know, what I see. Well, the first thing that I immediately see is that Panacea looks nothing like the rest of the family. I wasn't well versed in genetics by any stretch but it was enough to stand out. Open secret about adoption then?

Hm. From who, though? New Wave randomly adopting a second gen trigger? Unlikely. Hero or villian's kid that died in an Endbringer attack and not mentioned to keep enemies from coming after her? Possible. Wouldn't explain things though. Well, assuming explaining things was something that could be found along these lines.

Hm. Second gen parahumans tend to have powers related to their parents if New Wave was anything to go by. Glory Girl stood out as being different but she still had flight these. Biokinesis was a pretty radical departure by comparison.

Would take a little while to sort out the wider world, best to start local first and then move out from these. No one with biokinesis, obviously, even without look.

Click.

Click.

No heroes with anything like body manipulation.

The closest thing was...

Click.

Huh. That would...he was arrested when she was about...it's a pretty related power...

Resentment at home because of association, probably something silly about running in genes to justify it...

I shut off the tablet and set it aside before standing up and walking over. I abruptly hugged her.

She understandably froze in confusion.

"Hey, look. It's not about what you could do. Hell, it's only a little about what you've done before. What really matters is what you do now. What choice you make now. And then the next choice you make, and then the next choice. Baggage can follow you and your future is still out there but...at the end of the day, it's always that next choice that matters."

A pulled back from her and gave her a smile.

"So who are you?"

"Uh. I'm Amy? Amy Dallon?" She answered with an unsure tone.

"And what's Amy Dallon's next choice?"

"Um. I'm going to eat more of this ice cream. Uhhh. After I heal that nose. It's really bothering me."

I nodded. "Well. It sounds like Amy Dallon is just fine, then."

I sat back and gave her a smile before eating some of my own ice cream. She reached over and touched Shepards arm.

"So. Uh. Did you do this?" She looked at me and then back at Shepard. "It's really good work. But it reminds me a lot of Bonesaws stuff. That's why I freaked."

I frowned, wondering what she was talking about.

Tick.

Tick.

"Oh. Hell. Hax! Hax! I call Hax!"

Shepard raised an eyebrow. It took a few moments before she cracked a smile. "Well, I guess that secrets out. No, Taylor didn't do this to me. That's...a bit of a long story."

She sighed.

"Guess we're settled up though, right Taylor?"

I grumbled. "Don't even get me started, that's how we got here in the first place. Fine, fine. Yes. I know a secret of hers, she knows a secret of mine. We're squared away. Guess you're going to add one of your own to make yourself even?"

She grinned. "Oh, I know her other big secret." She gave Panacea a wink, which had the unexpected result of making her flinch and freeze in even more terror than the first time.

"Wo, wo!" Aimei tossed her hands up. "I'm not going to tell anyone. I mean, I don't blame you at all. Dean's a nice, attractive guy."

She seemed to relax at Aimei's reassurances. A lot, in fact. "Yeah." She answered, glancing around. "He really is. I just can't help how I feel."

I gave her a sympathetic look. "Shepard actually gave me some pretty good advice on the whole relationship thing shortly after we met. How did it go?" Drumming of fingers. "Basically, there are a bunch of different kinds of love and attraction. And it's particularly out of control in teenagers because we both don't have a lot of life experiences to have it balanced out in the same way someone that's never felt pain gets stabbed, or something like that, and because our hormones and body chemicals are all out of wack. So basically keep that in mind, and also don't get too hung up or invested in any one crush or attraction because the notion that there's only "one person" that will make all those happy brain chemicals is silly."

I looked over at Shepard. "If you actually had a crush on someone you couldn't pursue, how would you handle it?"

She thought about it for a few moments, actually a few moments longer than usual, before slowly responding. "Well...I haven't actually had the state of mind where that's even a passing concern in a long time, but... I'd say hanging out with friends, going on dates with people, go get laid, masturbation, that kind of thing. Basically get happy fun chemicals from interactions with other human beings, spending less time around the person in question going on other dates not as anything serious but just to enjoy someone elses company in that kind of sense that you don't get from friends. Casual dating, I guess you'd call it?" She shrugged. "Really, most dating should be casual until awhile passes and both parties are like "Ok, let's sit down and talk about this." And then figuring things out. I guess for most people in this time period that would be when the "going steady" and monogomy kick in but even when you're not dealing with that kind of stuff there's still things to figure out..." She trailed off. "Oh, getting distracted. Yeah, that's about the bit of it."

I chuckled as Amy choked on her ice cream. It seemed I'd probably have the pleasure of watching everyone's first interaction with Shep involve some variation of that at some point. "You just...talk about that kind of stuff, just like that?"

Blink. A review of what she said, dissecting how normal people think.

A shrug. Dismissing it as trivial. "What, masturbation? Sure, why not? Vast majority of people do it. Releases happy fun brain chemicals. Word of advice; don't think about the crush you can't have. Same reason you should spend less time around them or thinking about them in general. You wind up reinforcing the neuro-connections assisting them with the good feelings. Think about pretty much anything else, really." A dismissive wave of the hand.

Amy held up her hands. "Ok. Ok. That's enough advice for now. Too much, really."

Aimei chuckled. "Sure sure. Oh, question. You don't do brains out of choice, right? With biokinesis, there shouldn't be anything actually making it impossible. I don't recall reading anything about very specific Manton Limits, as weird as those are to start with."

Panacea's shoulders sagged a bit. "I guess if you're not going to tell people anyways...yeah, it's a choice thing. There's just too much power, and it's too dangerous..."

Shepard nodded. "Right, yeah. I get that. Does your power give you anything about biology, or have you done any study?"

She gave a slight smile. "It kind of tells me? Like, if I do x then it will do Y. Or if I want this arm fixed, I just kind of will it to happen. And I am studying. I thought it might help my power if I actually got medical training."

"Hm. Yeah. It's hard to fuck up an arm or even a heart. Brains are tricky. All those chemicals floating around, how it's interlinked, what does what. Hell, worse comes to worse, you can just mirror their arms or copy the pattern of a health liver from someone else, right?"

"More or less? If I copied a liver I'd have to tweak it so the body wouldn't reject it, but yeah, I could. But with brains..."

"With brains you're on your own. And you can't copy it because everyone's brain is wired up a little differently. It's smart not playing around with that. I would point out it's a weakness in your power set, though. Do some reading up on biochemistry. Read everyone's brains you're healing anyways just to get a baseline across a ton of people. Then if you feel comfortable with it in a few months or years you'll be able to. Write it off as you figuring out part of your power if it happens."

"I...don't think I'll ever be comfortable, but I guess just having more knowledge on these kinds of things wouldn't hurt. Enough of that, though. Tell me about, well, you. All that crazy stuff in there."

Shepard smiled. "Oh. After I died and was revived a few months later, they had to replace...most everything with replacements both biological and mechanical..."

Amy finally realized what she'd been doing before this topic of conversation got derailed, apparently, and reached over and touched Shepard's leg. Shepard felt her nose to make sure it was fine and tossed Amy a questioning look. Amy gave her a smile and a slight nod, which Shepard returned. What was...oh, permanent birth control. Wouldn't be surprised if her sister got that treatment. So jealous.

"I was basically a brain in a busted skeleton. Only thing that made me recoverable at all, I think, was that I didn't actually enter orbit. Hard suit or not, I would have fried and then splattered...hm. Oh, I guess I should tell the rest of the story so that all makes sense in context, eh?"

Amy's response was a trophy of a deadpan. "Yeah, I think that would be best."

And so Shepard did.

At the end, Amy was leaning back on the couch, having finished off her ice cream. The room had been silent for a few minutes before she finally spoke up. "So. How do you know that you're still, well, you?"

Huh. That was actually a good question.

"What do you mean?"

"You know, like you? Like the you that you remember being?"

Shepard raised her eyebrow. "Hm. Dunno. Doubt that's something you can figure out. I might not be? Hell, if I was putting money on it, I'd say I'm not. I don't see any reason that fucking with space time would have de-aged me."

We both stared at her this time. I was the one that spoke up, though. "And...that doesn't bother you?"

She shrugged. "Why would it? I mean, I have the memories, and I'm here alive. Clearly -I- am alive, regardless of if I'm the me that I remember I'm the me I am now. Hell, this might be the second time that this happened depending on if they actually saved my brain back then and what death actually is or whatever. The point is, -I- am here and alive, now. I wouldn't volunteer to be killed and cloned, mind you. But as the possible clone in question I don't have a problem with the fact that I have badass memories, a hot body, and a cool new world to explore."

Her look turned incredulous. "But that's all you're questioning?"

Amy shrugged. "Earth Alph."

Shepard laid her head back with a groan. "Is that going to be everyone's reaction that I make my big reveal to? I was hoping for more shock value."

I chuckled. "Aimei, this is a world with super powers. Our bar for weird is pretty high."

Amy checked her watch and a look of dissipointment came across her face. "I can't beleive I'm saying this, given how it wound up happening, but I had...a lot of fun. I'm guessing this is the best kidnapping in the history of kidnapping. But if I don't get back soon they're going to start treating it as such."

She stood but paused for a second. "Uh. What were the other favors? Since I'm here, I mean."

Shep smirked. "Just two more for today. Maybe one or two more later if you'll indulge me. As friends doing friends a favor, though."

Amy shrugged. "We'll see. But, I think I should be fine with that."

"Well. The first is for you. Most people have fun with their powers. For some reason, having fun with them tends to involve beating up other people with them. I'm asking you to enjoy your powers a bit. Change some flower colors, make bugs able to digest alcohol. Something any anything that strikes your mind. Just remove the ability to reproduce and keep it quite so no one freaks out but I think you'll be able to get past your hang-ups a bit if you, you know, have a little fun with it."

She looked distinctly uncomfortable, but nodded. "Ok...I'll give it a shot. Just a little, though."

"All I can ask. The second is for Taylor."

I perked up at this a bit, and tossed Shepard a fairly nervous look.

"See, I'm guessing she, like most women that have ever existed, would like the same, uh, tune up you gave me. And there's a few of my gene mods I think she'd be interested in..."


	9. Chapter 9

AN: Minor edits to last chapter. Biokinesis, not balkiness. Also, "Couldn't" not "Could" on the relationship thing.

...

I looked at my reflection. My reflection looked back. We stood staring at each other for a few minutes while I took in everything about my body. It was weird. Someone that didn't know me particularly well wouldn't be able to tell a difference (and to be fair; at the moment that was Amy via intimate knowledge of my body and Shepard via being my only friend) but I could see the changes.

They were pretty minor things. My skin was clear. I actually had a chest that could be measured in cup sizes (A solid A certainly qualified, thank you!). My deposits had redistributed in ways to give my appearance a more pleasing look. Shepard hadn't let me have Amy just fitness me up and she'd given me a gentle chiding about effort when I'd asked.

The changes weren't done, though. A lot of it would be an overtime thing as my new genes directed my body to adapt to it's new map. Technically Amy had the ability to change me in any way I wanted but ultimately I'd decided the best course of action was just to work with what was there plus Shep's "Galactic standard package." The end result was Amy tweaked them so that on the appearance level my genes had been tweaked to take advantage of the best of my mom and dads contributions to me rather than a roll of the dice on the matching up. She also was nice enough to clean things up so that I had no genetic predisposition to any particular diseases or debilitations. If I'd have rated myself a 4.5 before, I'd call myself a 5.5 now.

"You ever heard the trope "There are no ugly people in the future?"" Shepard mused from behind me.

I let my eyes rest on her in the reflection, thinking it over. "If gene mods like yours are the norm, I can see that. Why would anyone be unattractive if everyone can have their genetics tweaked?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I mean, there's still individual preferences and such but if the average of your hodgepodge natures whims genetics here are a 5 then the average in my time is a 6.5." She winked at me. "You'll be quite attractive even by those standards, though. You had good genes in there. Just poor luck how they worked together. Well, eventually."

I grinned. "Don't let anyone ever say I'm short sighted. Sure, would have been fun to say "Ok, make me the best I can look now!" but it's more optimal to set my development for optimal state at maturity as that's what I'll be living with longer."

A flash of a grin. "Sure, sure. In your backwards technological world where you can't just get your genes tweaked as you progress on life."

I tossed a toothbrush at her and scowled. "Yes, well. That would require me having to take advantage of Panacea's power on a regular basis. To many ifs involved with that, even discounting the taking advantage part of it."

She raised an eyebrow. "Taking advantage? First Shadow Stalker and now Panacea? I'm hurt. Absolutely devastated I tell you."

I snorted as I turned to face her, crossing my arms over my chest. "What, don't approve of our hypothetical relationship?"

She paused to consider that for a second before shaking her head. "Nah. Much as we've worked out your issues and hopefully pointed her in the direction of getting a handle on hers... well, I'd put money on a codependent relationship, functional or not, before I'd put money on one either of us would call healthy."

"Hm. Yeah. I could see that. And more likely than not doesn't mean it's not possible just, yeah."

A nod. "Mmm. If you were actually crushing on her I'd give you some support and help you avoid the pitfalls but if we're hypothetically choosing your crushes now then it's not one that I'd choose."

"Yeah. Wasn't interested in me anyways." I mused with a finger on my chin. "I mean, did you catch her sneaking a glance at your chest when you went to give her the ice cream?"

Shepard chuckled and leaned against the door frame, running a hand down her side. "Of course she did. I'd be worried about her if she didn't. I mean, have you -seen- me?"

I scowled and then pushed past her to walk back into the main room with only a flicker of disappointment as she nimbly sidestepped.

"Ah, right. Should probably tell you the other things too. Your body is going to be hyper efficient at calorie management. No more of that silly evolutionary tendency to hoard calories for a drought. You've essentially got an ideal weight set. Eat more than needed to maintain whatever your body needs to maintain peak function for a few days and it will burn it off. Eat less and it will hoard. Basically much smarter adaptively to intake /output. Also, your muscles and bones will be a little more dense soon. Synapse speeds will be sped up..." Her eyes glazed in thought for a second. "Urm. Faster healing rates as well. Much lower rate of lactic acid build ups in your system so you can push your muscles way longer."

"Ever hear about those guys that seemed to have had super powers? They cropped up in my world too. Edge cases where genetics did weird things. The guy that could run 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. The guy that was basically non-conductive. The family with the bones 10-100x denser than normal, etc. You won't be a brute, but you'll be pushing "Perfect human." Still not 100% optimal, mind you. There are animals with even more impressive things going on. We had weird laws about genetic tampering. It was a big political shit storm for awhile but the important part is that I'm all human outside my robot parts. As she copied my gene mods..."

"It means I'm not part animal, I get it. Pressing up against the limits of what the human body is theoretically capable of without taking on nifty things like that spider protein skin."

She grinned and tapped me on the head. "Yeah. Best sidekick ever! But, I kinda have things like that. I just don't think she's quite ok enough with her power to be mucking about with things that arn't strictly human in a human at this point. All that stuff in me was from Cerberus, not genetic or even military standard or approved..."

"OH! Right! We keep getting distracted from Science!" She switched gears suddenly, causing me to mentally stumble though a grin slowly made it's way across my face.

"Ok. A quick round to finish off our observations. How many people are in your range?"

I paused for a second before responded. "716 that I can see."

She nodded. "Ok. How many news papers?"

"Uh. 23. Again, that I can see."

Another nod. "Position a few dragonflies at each so you can see different articles with each."

It took a few minutes to get things lined up right, while also keeping people from noticing the odd bug movements. "We're good.

"Ok, I want you to tell me how many times Armsmaster is mentioned at least once in the articles you can see."

"Hmm. 4 times."

"Very good." She smiled. "Now read the articles."

This took a bit longer. With the extra bugs, I was able to divvy up sections of each article to a few different bugs but only so many had eyesight good enough to read text. Let alone from distances." All in all, maybe 30 seconds to read all 4 articles in these non-ideal conditions. I nodded when I finished.

"Alright. If you could inform me of the contents?"

"Uh. Erm. Well, he talked about Kaiser being a menace in one. Something about a charity at a hospital in another. Congratulating Vista on handling a hostage situation in the third. Apparently some high level bank employee got kidnapped by Uber and Leet last week. Uh. something about the docks in the last."

I frowned. "So...even though I can theoretically read with as many eyes as I have, I can only absorb information at what I normally could...I guess I don't have eidetic memory for this stuff."

Shepard gave me a slightly horrified look. "I'd actually be grateful for that. It seems like your knowledge is still being stored in your brain. No normal human has to worry about it, but."

I blinked. "Oh. Oh shit. With the amount of data flowing from my bugs, I really could run out of hard drive space!"

A nod. "Yeah. I can't even imagine what that would be like. It's still super useful, though. I'm guessing what you remembered was because while your bugs were reading the articles you were paying attention with your "human" brain to the points that caught your interest?"

A sighed. "More like caught my eye. But still, knowing that limitation, I could probably train myself to pick up facts and such quicker couldn't I?"

"Yeah! Great thinking! There are techniques you can learn to do that. More efficent ways of filing information and such. You're still going to be limited, but..."

"Don't complain about the advantages I have because they're awesome. I'm basically sitting on an effectively unlimited amount of RAM and low powered processing cores limited just by range and number of insects." I closed my eyes in thought. "And...read speed from my head? Because I can give commands to any number, and do math problems...what's that called? Operational memory or something?"

She nodded. "Procedural memory is what you're thinking of, I think."

"Yeah, I think that's it. My write speed is limited to what a human could manage but I can also use my human level processing up to it's limits...and I guess however far I'm able to train it with those techniques you mentioned."

"Exactly! Which will be handy when I'm finished building the hub!"

I widened my eyes a bit. "The hub being?"

"Oh. Something I think you'll enjoy with our internet and computer analogies. Come over here for a second."

She waved me over to a work bench in the back. "I was able to put this together with what little downtime I've had since I learned the scope of your power. Had to take apart a bunch of old CD drives, wire up some sensors...well. The technical details aren't important. Still needs some fine tuning and a custom operating system to take full advantage but."

She waved computer setup. But the monitor was currently broken up into 4 display sections. As there were four, uh, keyboards? I assumed each was a different display.

The keyboards were a rig of tiny laser heads where the keys would actually be. They had very slight spacing and arrangements in directions, almost as if...

I blinked.

"Do these detect the beating of wings?"

A wide grin. "Got it in one, yeah! From what I was reading, bees can buzz their wings at something like over 200 times per second. Flies at around a thousand. I'm not sure if your control is exact enough to instruct a single wing beat. If not, we can rig it up to detect changes in osculation speed instead of raw wing beats. I'd imagine you can probably give up "Faster or slower" very quickly. The plan is to eventually have a room full of these rigs so you can..."

A cut her off with a crushing hug. "You're giving me the internet?!"

She patted my back. "Uh...kinda. With your particular power set up you should be able to browse as many website pages as we have set ups for you. If we're on the clock your human brain can quickly scan anything your hive mind directions notices as interesting to what we're working on. If we're not on a time crunch your human brain can direct something like copy and pasting for anything that we need which you can dissect once you have it all."

"You're the best! This is the best present ever! Or, well, will be when I have it! The entire internet will be mine!"

She poked me in the forehead and took a step back. "From "my power sucks" to dreams of megalomania in a single day. Either I'm a miracle worker or teenage mood swings are in full power today."

"Little of A little of B." I deadpanned. "Now if we can just get our hands on a Thinker to interpret the raw data I can output and organize I could do a very good impression of an AI."

Shepard froze for a full five seconds before bringing the back of her hand up and wiping away a mock tear. "I...I hadn't even thought of that. They grow up so fast."

"Project number one my glorious little Shadow Broker. Compile a list of all the Thinkers in Brockton Bay."


	10. Chapter 10

AN: Trigger warning out of left field. You're approaching it when "Moral event horizon" pops up. I, uh, toned Shepard done a touch there to lessen the impact a bit?

Set up for finally doing the deed next chapter.

...

"Well." I said after spending all of five minutes going over the relevant wiki, news pages, and forum posts, both compiling all of the useful information together and then reading through it myself. "It's a short list. Either Thinker's are rare globally or Brockton Bay just has a shortage. Actually, I can probably answer that pretty easy come to think of it." I tasked my hive mind to start gathering that data for me while I turned most of my human attention to Aimei.

I clicked a page on to the projector. "First up, Uber. Not exactly the kind of Thinker we were, uh, thinking of. Can make himself a master at any skill he wants. But if I'm looking at it tactically I could see how he could turn on super data analysis or something for our purposes. Would still be at human limits but peak human limits is certainly far better than what I can do on that side of things."

Next slide. "Victor. Striker / Thinker, kinda? Can steal skills from people he touches. Is in the Empire, married to Othello. Depending on what he has absorbed or." I swallowed. Think tactically Taylor, tactically. Even if it's distasteful. "If we had anyone we decided could stand to lose some skills, he could be useful. I'd need to do more research to see if they actually by into the Empire ideology assuming I can even gleam that from what's available online. Even if I have all the pieces, I'm not exactly an expert psychologist."

Next slide. "Coil. Suspected Thinker, but that's more of a "Anyone have a better idea?" sort of way. Somehow holds territory despite not having any parahumans of his own or having ever displayed a power so I'd probably take that bet myself. Also likely too high profile for us regardless at the moment."

She nodded at my tactical appraisal. "Will have to deal with him at some point. He's probably the most dangerous in the city."

I blinked. "Huh?"

"It's one of those things." She said with a wave of her hand. "Sneaky types. Holding territory but not doing anything with it? Has highly trained mercenaries? I know his type. Illusive Man types. Kaiser is a threat you know. Lung is a threat you know. You commit your attention there and Coil gets away with whatever he wants because you're not paying attention. It's the threat you don't know that's most dangerous and he's up to something, mark my words."

I mulled it over and then nodded. She was probably right. I could play out my school situation with that logic. If anyone else had been working against me there I wouldn't have noticed because Emma, Madison, and Sophia were the threats all my attention was on.

"Noted. So current threat assessment is Coil, Kaiser, then Lung?"

She gave me a slightly surprised look. "You picked that up?"

I rolled my eyes. "I do pay attention, you know. Lung is obviously the most dangerous in a fight but with what we're doing that's not what we're measuring. Kaiser has a larger gang, dangerous ideology, and political power. Take Lung out and Kaiser has the manpower and drive to take over the city. Take the Empire out and while Lung might spread out a little he just doesn't have the parahuman capital to do much more. And really, it's kind of like a sleeping dragon situation. If the Dragon is already awake, you've got nothing to lose. If the Empire spreads over the city, that's still a lot of parahumans to have to deal with to contain them. If Lung tries to do the same thing then they could call in some heavy hitters, remove the singular power parahuman crime lord, and suddenly Brockton Bay is free of parahuman muscle."

I tapped the desk. "Hell. The pessimist in me wants to say that so long as Lung doesn't make too much of a nuisance of himself the PRT is content to let him hang out. Lung doesn't volunteer for Endbringer fights but I'm guessing they think he'll participate if one shows up."

She gave me a wide grin and slipped into a teasing tone. "Excellent analysis. Sure you're not a Thinker yourself? You've been learned this shit via osmosis from me in, like, two days."

I shrugged. "Well it's simple when you get down to it, right? Reject what you think you know, reject what people tell you they know, and then look at the facts as they are. Everyone's afraid of Lung. Why are they afraid of Lung? Because apparently no one can beat him in a straight fight. People are less afraid of Kaiser. Why? Because he's not overtly as strong. Plus, if you're white he'll probably leave you alone. And the majority of the population is white, so. Maybe a mix of some "not our problem" mentality there. But, getting distracted."

Last slide. "Tattletale. Member of the Undersiders. Again, unknown power but suspected Thinker. Given that the Undersiders have avoided getting arrested or even any serious confrontations that's another bet I'd be willing to take...hm." I paused as my hivemind had finished going over all the data sources I'd thought to direct them to. "Looks like Thinkers account for about 5% of the parahuman population going by official sources. 7% once I factor in things posted on the forums and such that indicate ones that slipped by. Like, Tattletale and Coil wouldn't be on the official one as unconfirmed but look heavily like they are."

"Interesting. Would look like Brockton Bay actually has a disproportionate amount of Thinkers, in that case. I'd imagine you qualify as one yourself."

I thought about that. "Hm. Oh, yeah. Almost certainly. Thinker...4, maybe. because of my range? 6 if you're actually in my range due to effective omniscience? Something like that. I'd have to actually read the classification guide if there's one available, that's just based on the numbers and effects I noticed while looking up Thinkers."

I frowned slightly and stuck my tongue out at her slightly. "It seems I'm picking up your bad traits too. Getting distracted by tangible subjects and rambling on them... So what's the plan Commander?"

She rubbed my hair affectionately. "Don't point your tongue at me unless you mean it." She winked. "But they're endearing traits. Adorable, even. And the plan is simple. I'll handle Uber, you handle Tattletale. Get a trend of movements and such of the internet. See if you can track her down and do some observation with those bugs of yours. I'll scout Uber as a possibility."

I sighed. "Because my sensibilities demand I ask, even though I think I know the answer, we're going to work with villains instead of arresting them why?"

A slow blink on her part. "Hm. Either of them cross the moral even horizon? Cold blooded murder? Torture? After that it would be a mater of figuring out how likely they would be to repeat..."

I glanced at my gathered data. "Nothing on Tattletale. Looks like the Undersiders specialize in robberies and being "Getaway" specialists. Very clean on collateral. Uber...there was an incident with him and Leet beating of prostitutes as a video game skit. There was public outrage even on their channel so it was an isolated incident. People like watching harmless villian's do funny things and get beat up, not psychopaths. Who knew? And rape isn't on that list?"

A wince, and she actually looked mildly uncomfortable which was a first. "One of those societal things. Rape is a form of torture and is sometimes included along torture techniques. It just gets it's own special slot in people's minds because the vast majority of people won't ever have to deal with other kinds of torture but an unfortunate number of people, especially women, will be raped. It's the same way that if you offered to sell someone life insurance for a plane ride and another person Endbringer insurance on the same plane ride the second person would be more likely to take it."

She gave me a sad look. "Something I hope you don't have to deal with, but another one of those things it's best you have in perspective. My infiltrator training included how to handle torture. Emotional, physical, sensory. All of it. And, uh, in whatever specific forms it might take."

I nodded slowly. "Ok...I can see that. I wouldn't want...that to happen to me but I wouldn't want to slowly be dismembered either. One's just far more likely to happen than the other. Well. If I wasn't a hero. I'd imagine that our rates of torture are higher than the standard."

Another sad look. "Mm. In the same way that they are in the military and for spies in particular. Hence getting training for it. I should probably actually teach you some things. You know."

"Yeah." I returned the look. "It's better I know the skills and not need them than find myself strapped on a table somewhere with no idea what to do about it."

She rubbed my head. "I think you can cheat a bit with that outsourcing you can do to your bugs. But I'll focus on the real things when we deal with that stuff, which will be soon, because if you were dependant on that and it got taken away you'd be especially vulnerable."

"Yeah. The stuff we talked about earlier. Scope of experiances and all that. If I'm always outsourcing and then I can't, the 8s and 10s that I'm used to become 10s and 12s. I get it."

We were both silent for a minute while she gave me time to get my head back into the game.

"Ok...ok. So do you want to get started on Uber and Tattletale?"

She shook her head. "No. We're going to go ahead and get me into Armsmaster's lab so I can build my damned Omnitool. We'll keep out tasks in mind after that."

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "So before I even do any real training, before we've recruited a Thinker, before we even have a decent plan, you want us to sneak into the most secure spot in the city long enough to build something and then sneak by out?"

She tisked and reached onto the shelf behind her before tossing something at me. It was a Clockblocker hat. "No. I'm sneaking into the most secure location in the city and building something You're going on a tour of the facility, eating dinner in their cafeteria, and providing over watch for me in the process." A quick grin. "And then breaking me out of the local jail. Normal people jail, not super powered jail. There's no way I'm managing all of that -and- getting back out. Not without revealing I'm not just a normal human, anyways. And being a normal human they'll have to toss me over to the normal police!"

I palmed my forehead. "I. What. You...fine. Just. Fine. I need to stop underestimating your particular brand of crazy before it drives -me- nuts."

She nodded sagely. "Exactly."

"Alright, let's get on with this if we're doing it."


	11. Chapter 11

We some slight preparations before we headed out which mostly consisted of me gathering together a few choice insects. Not a proper swarm but just a reasonable quantity of the more useful ones. Dragonflies for seeing, bees for their special senses, beetles for heat senses. Most of them would actually be riding on Shepard so I could supplement her sneaking with me own senses.

Here "gear", if it could even be called as such, consisted of an outfit that I was surprised that she could fit into. When I'd questioned her on it, she'd just replied that there were several different kinds of sneaking, stealth, and infiltration. The tactic that she was going to use today relied on the fact that no one had ever seen or heard of her before. She'd called it a variation of "refuge in audacity." I'd give her this, at least, the outfit was audacious. I suppose from a practical point of view she wasn't going to get very dressed in a ninja outfit.

I was surprised she didn't have any issues with insects pressed against her skin between her clothes but she'd told me quite simply that she'd had worse. Much, much worse. I didn't question her further on it, especially after her last antidote. "Hell, if I get trapped in a vent or something they can double as a snack!"

Shudder.

The tour of the rig had been enjoyable so far. They pointed out a few of the offices and we got to walk by the testing and training bay. To my eyes it pretty much just looked like a tinkertech gym but in practice maybe that's what it was. We'd also got to meet a few of the PRT people that were stationed on the rig. Apparently they mostly handled admin work which I suppose made sense. There weren't enough heroes to man a base this size and someone had the be responsible for tours, paperwork, and everything else.

We were scheduled to stop by the Wards room after we ate, which was exciting. More exciting was that Armsmaster and Miss Militia would be eating with us. It was weird. I knew that we were here to...steal? Hm. Well, I guess we would be stealing supplies, but nothing valuable in of itself I don't think. Commandeer, then? I wasn't even sure I could file that as morally wrong even before getting involved with Shepard. Against the law certainly, but.

Sidetracked thoughts aside, my inner fangirl was pretty excited about getting to interact with the two most prominent heroes in the bay. Why hadn't I ever taken this tour before?

"And here's the cafeteria, where all of the on site staff take their meals."

"So. Like. Armsmaster is totally going to be eating with us?" I cast a glance at the speaker, one audaciously dressed Shepard who was twirling her hair while speaking, before giving a huff I didn't have to fake.

"Normally, yes. But unfortunately something came up that demanded his attention and he'll be off base for likely a few hours. I'm sure all of you know how busy our heroes are. Miss Militia will still be joining you all, though."

"Totally lame." Shepard replied in an indignant voice and I had to avoid snickering. I was curious, though. That seemed pretty convenient. I'd have to put money on it being something Shepard arranged rather than blaming it being a chance event from our point of view. The timing was too good.

A few minutes later I was standing at the buffet area loading some apple sauce on to my plate when Shepard brushed up against me to get some French fries.

"What have we got?" She asked, obviously just loud enough for me to hear.

"Lots of power and heat in the walls in a room on the other side of this floor. Probably either Kid Wins or Armsmaster's lab. Can you make do with either?"

She gave me a slight grin out of the corner of her mouth while getting her food. "I'm not sure either will have what I need. This is a role of the dice either way. Thankfully if I can't do it then I should have enough time to slip away so nothing lost."

I didn't nod but I did give her a slight smile to show my understanding before moving away from the food area and over to a table where Miss Militia would be joining us shortly. We were avoiding any sub vocal communication on base because we had no idea what kind of sensors they were using. It was possible they had something that would pick them up and flag them for being a non-standard communication.

As Miss Militia walked in Shepard tossed our guide a look. "Well, I guess if Armsmaster isn't going to be here I'm not missing much. Where's the ladies room?"

I had to resist groaning at the slight against Miss Militia, and if the look on her face was anything to go by the tour guide was in the same boat but she soldiered on.

"2nd door on your left outside the cafeteria. Can't miss it."

She left. The plan was actually really quite simple. She was going to leave under the pretense of going to the bathroom. She was then going to wander down to where the lab was while I gave her directions via bugs to avoid any people that were wandering about. She had no intention of doing anything about the cameras because she had no intention of avoiding being caught. And if you're planning on being caught it's best to look as harmless as possible.

Getting into the lab itself required some intervention on my part, which I was going to do now. The bugs in the walls near the door traced the wires leading from the door to it's power supply. Having my insects bite through it while cameras could confirm that she was in the bathroom would be the opening stages.

I paused to consider the plan up to this point and winced. It would work fine, and she could truthfully say that she wasn't responsible for the door being open but...it was still a little too convenient.

How to make it look like she was just a random teen taking advantage of someone else's plot? Hm...

I had my bugs find the lines that fed power from the ground floor up (didn't want to kill the power to the cells below for obvious reasons) and then through the backup power lines leading to a few different places on this floor including where I'd quickly realized was the PRT armory on this floor. There were a few suits of their armor and a couple of foam canisters in the area. This new plan would also disable all of the defense systems on the floor which my bugs had discovered were actually quite numerous.

The end result was that shortly after Miss Militia had sat down at the table the power to the building went out. I watched the veteran hero tense and then relax slightly a few seconds later when the backup generators kicked on.

The group was understandably disturbed and she gave them a reassuring smile. It was pretty amazing how much emotion she could convey despite her mouth being covered but I imagined it was something that she'd devoted some time and practice to. Seemed like a useful skill to have. Maybe something I should practice if I wound up leaving my mouth exposed? I noted it down for consideration later.

"Everything's fine. This happens every now and then. It could be anything from a normal power outage to Kid Win overloading the generators in his lab. So. Anyone have any questions about the Protectorate?"

Pretty well handled. Reassure and then distract with a subject they were interested in. I did notice a very slight pause on her face midway through which was probably her getting a message about the backup generators shorting out in a few places on the floor which would indicate enemy action. The fact that she was remaining here meant that she was to guard the tour group.

At the same time, our guide stood up. "Excuse me." She said with a smile. "I just need to visit the refresher."

Hm. Not a simple guide then. A PRT agent in acuality? Going to check on Aimei to make sure that she was both ok and not up to no good was an intelligent move. It also cut down the time frame that Aimei had to work by a short period.

I watched the woman leave while listening in to the tourist asking Miss Militia some inane questions with my human senses while most of me was floating in my hivemind directing Shepard around the various PRT agents rushing to the armory. In fact it seemed that even Assault seemed to be getting in on the fun, making some quip I couldn't quite understand with the few natural bugs that were scattered in the area.

Shepard had reached the doors unharassed and thankfully killing the power to them had left them open. That made sense, I thought. Unless Armsmaster specifically locked them opening during an power failure was the best option. Being trapped in his lab if the building was under siege would be embarrassing. She waltzed in, took stock of the lab, and then nodded to herself before begining to collect materials. I idly watched as my attention was also giving a chuckle to something Miss Militia had just said while also have my bugs knock some stuff over in the armory via team work and silk to make it look like someone had been mucking about in there.

The agents were almost there so I quickly collected the silk and had my bugs withdraw. I imagine they would find the situation quite confusing. Someone had just barely managed to avoid being cornered by them despite having no way out. On the plus side they didn't actually manage to get any of the gear though...

Not leaving evidence behind was probably the most intensive part of this entire thing. I had to get bugs to strip the coating off of the wires without electrocuting themselves and then get the wires maneuvered together in order to short themselves out. It would be easier if I just needed them to chew through the wires but Shepard had decided it was best if they had no idea someone with insect control powers was even involved. They'd probably suspect later after I made my reveal but for now don't give any more clues that necessary even as minor as they may be.

Hell, I could look at this as a positive. They'd have to revamp their security after this, right? Should make it harder for any one else to infiltrate the location for more nefarious purposes that using the lab.

The PRT agents and Assault had just reached the armory. The agents looked confused while Assault continuted to look amused. Turning my attention on him more fully I could see an undercurrent of steel there, though. He might be dsiplaying amusement, he might even be amused, but at the end of the day he was still a veteran hero and someone had broken into the protectorate base and was seeming to get away with it.

The agents started to fan out to systematically sweep the floor. I decided to toss another wrench in their plans by fiddling with the backup power lines on the next floor down. It took a few movements but when the information was relayed half the squads heads towards the stairs to go sweep the area that the outage was spotted. Another two squads headed further down, likely to cover the entrance.

About this time the Wards were starting to sweep the upper levels. That was good, I didn't want them to get involved with this. Especially if Dean or Dennis were wards. I couldn't predict how that would swing things and not being able to predict things in an operation was dangerous.

Armsmaster had just arrived in the lobby and was making a beeline for the stairs, bulling past a PRT squad in the process. Guess that answered if he had any alarms seperate from the system to his lab. Made sense, that. Probably lots of stuff in there he really, really didn't want getting out into the world at large.

I gave Shepard a non-venomous sting to signal here. She didn't make any signs of noticing but she did pull back from whatever piece of machinery that she'd been playing with. She gave a quick point and my bugs sat about cleaning up the shavings and other cast offs from her usage of the machine. It wouldn't hold up to a close inspection but for the moment we were banking on that coming after she was on her way to a holding cell. Worse comes to worse I was fairly sure I could get her out of a PRT cell based on what I'd done so far today but I didn't want to risk it if I didn't have to.

I chocked on my drink slightly back in my real body as my bugs watched her then proceed to swallow the pieces that she'd made. She hadn't ever actually mentioned how she'd planned on getting them back out and I hadn't asked. I guess smuggling them was certainly one solution to that and upon reflecting on it I didn't see a great alternative. What was she going to do, toss them out a window and pick them up later?

Hmm.. actually, I could use crabs to carry them back to shore and then have bugs...did I tell her I can use crabs? Ah well. More complicated. This was the simplest solution.

She'd just finished up doing so and I had the area around the machinery cleaned up. She was currently leaned over a case with a random assortment of tools and tinker items when Armsmaster came through the door.

"Put your hands on your head and lay on the ground!"

She turned to face him, her face lighting up in excitement. Almost at the same time they must have switched on a secondary backup because the power to the areas I'd cut came back on.

"Oh my god oh my god!" She..squeed. She actually squeed! I don't think I've ever heard that happen in real life before.

Armsmaster looked slightly taken back by this but he soldiered on. "This is a highly restricted area. I don't know what you think you were hoping to accomplish by breaking in here, but..."

She held up a finger, walking slowly towards him and swaying her hips. "You don't know what I'm doing here? You really can't think of a reason why I'd be sneaking into the secret lab of the world renowned Armsmaster?"

Oh. Oh god. Really? This was how this was happening.

I watched Armsmaster's jaw tighten. "Be that as it...may. I'm placing you under arrest."

She gave him a very sultry smirk as she took another step forwards. "Oh. Oh yes! Handcuff me! Take me away! Lock me in a room and interrogate me! I'm, like, 16! It's totally legal!"

Armsmaster took a step back. -ARMSMASTER- actually took a step back! By the fucking anthropologist, what the hell?

"Miss. Please turn around and...put your hands behind your back so that I may, uh, handcuff you."

"Yes! You want me to turn around? Oh! Maybe I can reach down there and clean out some of the parts under your work bench!"

"No! Uh. That is, don't touch anything. That won't be necessary. Just turn around and place your hands behind your back."

"Yes sir!" She gave him a quick salute, but took another step forwards, an eager look in her eye. "Just...one thing first. Can I...can I touch your halberd? Can I hold it? Please let me touch it!" Another step.

I had to stand and go refill my drink to hide the very rapid blush that was spreading across my face.

It was with a very confused, and maybe even slightly panicked look in his face if I was reading it right, that Armsmaster hit her in the stomach with the butt of his halberd. There was a slight flash and sizzle after which Shepard crumpled to the ground.

Armsmaster stood dumbfounded for almost a few minutes looking between his halberd and Shepard. After he regained his composure, he touched something in his ear. "Console. One...perpetrator caught in my lab. Please prepare an interrogation room." He seemed to actually mull that one over for a second. "And have a female agent, preferably Miss Militia, present."


	12. Chapter 12

AN: I almost channeled Steven (Not Steve!) Heck into this which amusingly wouldn't have rung as a lie. This would have been the tactic against an Armsmaster and Piggot combo. Against Armsmaster and Miss Militia she's opted to go with a continuation of out of context problem crossed with sympathy.

Taylor, whhhhy. Whhhy do you have to bring the feels? Look at Shepard! Look at what she's doing! Do those look like feels to you?!

...

Convenient timing came in the fact that we were finishing out dinner meet and greet with Miss Militia while Shepard was busy getting tazed. I was glad that I was just finishing getting a drink as I was running a gauntlet of emotions mentally. Abject horror and embarrassment on witnessing that (mildly increased by being unsure what she would have done had he reciprocated while another was speaking in her voice telling me both that it would probably be fun and that it was a shame she knew he was too much of a consummate Hero to do anything like that when she formed it as a plan) stark amusement at how it had played out, and not a little trepidation now that we were actually entering into the arresting part of the plan.

And frankly; Any plan that called for you to be arrested probably needed more thought put into it.

Miss Militia excused herself to go attend to Hero duties while we all filled towards the elevator to continue our tour. Next stop: Wards.

The elevator was just reaching the floor when Miss Militia entered the interogation room where Shepard was slightly out of it and drooling on the table she was handcuffed to while a stoic Armsmaster stood in the corner. I'm sure it was just coincidence that said corner was as far away from Shepard as he could manage to get in the small room.

'What have we got?" She asked as she walked in. "Trying to steal something from your lab?"

A shook his head very slightly. "Negative. I encountered her looking around my lab. When I confronted her she...came on to me. Rather strongly. Hence why I have requested your presence for this interrogation."

I think there might have been just the slightest twist of amusement in Miss Milita's face but it was gone as soon as I thought I noticed and she turned her attention more fully on Shepard. "That's probably for the best. Did she try to resist arrest?"

"No. She approached me and was quite insistent on touching my halberd. When she entered into a potentially threatening range I tactically subdued her."

Miss Militia blinked. "Subdued her how?"

He shrugged slightly. "With the taser built in to the bottom of my halberd."

There was a slight sigh. "While I realize that you were within your right to was that really necessary?"

He grunted. "I deemed it the most efficient and effective way of resolving the...situation."

Another sigh from the female hero before a voice slurred in and Shepard slowly sat up. "Armsy..." She purred, or tried to at least. "I thought I'd have to do a little convincing to get you to play that rough."

We'd just arrived outside the Wards room and had pressed a button. It was explained that this was a buzzer to give the wards inside time to mask up before we entered.

Both heroes shared a glance, and Shepard attempt to stretch while finding herself cuffed to the table. "And you decided on the handcuffs after all? Are you going to intergate me now?!"

She seemed to finally notice Miss Militia in the room at this point. She blinked and then tossed the older woman a grin. "Well. I wasn't expecting you to bring a friend but you've got excellent tastes. Don't worry, I'm a big girl. I can handle it."

A slight widening of the eyes and...was that the hint of a blush on Miss Militias face? I think the only reason Shepard wasn't 2/2 on making heroes choke on something was the lack of food or beverage present.

"No." Armsmaster cut in with perhaps a little more force that necessary. "We're here to establish why you were in my lab and if you had anything to do with the power being cut."

She grinned at him. "I already told you while I was in the lab Armsy. I wanted to poke around your tools. And when you showed up I thought I'd try and to play with the ones on you."

Miss Militia tossed a glance to Armsmaster and he gave her a very slight nod.

"Did you have anything to do with the power being cut?"

She shook her head. "Nope. No idea that was even going to happen. It just made getting into your awesome lab much easier!"

Another very slight nod of the head.

"You are aware that it's a very serious crime to..."

She cut him off pouting. "I knooow. But I wanted..."

He cut her off this time, raising his hand in the process. "I think we've well established what you wanted." He sighed.

The door to the Wards room finally opened and my human self was quite glad for the distraction. I was very close to beating my head on the wall.

"And here are the Wards!" The tour guy introduced as we stepped in. "You never know which Wards will be in at a given time. As you can see, today we have Vista and Clockblocker!"

There was a muffled cheer from the group and a slight clapping of the hands as Vista warped space to arive a short distance from us while Clockblocker strolled up at a much more reasonable pace.

"Afternoon everyone!" He said with what I was pretty sure was false cheer. His head turned to look over the group and I detected a slight pause as he passed over me. Why would...oh, right. The silly hat. I gave him a smile and a wave which he returned a bit more enthusiastically than his initial greeting. Huh. Guess he liked his fans.

Back in the interrogation room it seemed like Armsmaster was starting in on his final question from the tone. "Miss, are you a parahuman?"

Shepard blinked at him and made a show of shifting uncomfortably. "Isn't that like, rude to ask? I mean, I thought it was against the law or something."

He grunted. "It's not illigal to ask, but we can't require you to answer. It will just help your case a great deal if you're honest with us."

She gave him a big grin. "Of course I'll answer you honestly Armsy! No. I'm not a parahuman. If I was, we could be on a team together. It'd be so awesome!"

He shifted and I was wondering if he would be shuddering in a different situation. "I'm...sure you'd make a great addition to the Wards. So...keep it in mind if you ever trigger." He finished lamely and unsure of the words coming out of his mouth.

"Of course!"

"Well." Miss Militia stepped back into the fray. "I don't think there was any harm done here..." She tossed a glance at Armsmaster who gave her another very slight nod. "So I think if you just let us call your parents so we can explain then maybe we can leave it to your parents to discipline you."

"Sorry. My dad died a long time ago and...I don't know where my mom is. I took some classes online and graduated so I'm on my own now."

There was definite sympathy on Miss Militias face. "I'm sorry dear..."

"It's alright. I'm used to it." She leaned over the table and crossed her arms under her chest very intentionally. "The point is, if there's any disipline to be had, you're going to have to do it. I mean you already have me handcuffed, be a shame to waste it. Ohh! Your power turns into a knife! Can it turn into a whip?!"

Yes, yes. Miss Militia was definitely bluffing. I was distracted enough by these developments that I completely missed a question tossed my way.

"Huh? Sorry, it's just so cool to meet heroes!" Smooth Taylor. Just like a pro.

"Uh." Clockblocker replied. Was he trying to make his voice sound deeper? "Thanks! But I was asking who your favorite hero was. I mean, you have the hat but it's best to make sure of these things."

I paused and thought about it. Who was my favorite Hero? "Well...when I was younger it was Alexandria, but I guess there aren't many little girls who it wasn't..."The was a general chuckle amongst the group.

Who was my favorite Hero? Obviously, Shepard was my favorite hero even if she wasn't a Hero. She'd done more for me in the past 24 hours than the Heroes had done my entire life. That was a bit unfair so I shelved the resentment to be dissected and murdered at a later date. "Well. Obviously you and Vista are the coolest heroes in the city." Another chuckle from the group. Hey! I was pretty good at this public speaking thing! I was even rewarded with a beaming smile from Vista. "I guess that's the best answer I've got at the moment. I haven't actually sat down and tried to objectively figure out who my favorite Hero is. I mean, who's had the biggest impact on policies? Who's done the most to reduce crime statistics? Do any actually devote time to addressing the systemic issues that cause crime in addition to trying to punch crime in the face? Just small questions like that I'd have to sit down and think about."

The room had gone deadly quite and after a few moments someone coughed because silence in group settings apparently made people uncomfortable.

"Uh...ok." Clockblocker finally responded before turning to a girl a little younger than me. "Who's your favorite hero?"

The girl shot me a little bit of a dirty look before grinning at him. "Legend, duh. He can shoot all kinds of cool laser beams!"

And that's why PR is important, part of me thought. For the 99% of the population that don't actually look at the statistics and real issues.

Back in the integration room things had completely died down.

"Look. What you did was wrong. If you do it again, I'll arrest you for real. As a matter of fact, if you ever come back here without a real emergency I'll arrest you."

Shepard pouted. "And pent us sexual frustration doesn't..."

Armsmaster held up a hand and cut her off. "No. No it most certainly does not. Now will you agree to this?"

She sniffed and wiped away...did she actually just summon a tear on demand? Was that even possible? "Fine. I get it. If you don't want me then I won't come back!"

Armsmaster's pose settled into something a little more relaxed while Miss Militia gave her a sad smile. "Wouldn't it maybe be healthier to go after someone your own age?"

Shepard snorted. "My biological age? Pleease. I'm like, way older where it counts. I mean, I graduated high school! And I've taken a bunch of college classes! What guy anywhere near my age has anything to offer me?"

"Ah. I can see how that...might be an issue. Look." She walked over and uncuffed Shepard, causing her to give the woman another pout. "Here's my card. If you ever want to talk about anything give me a call. I know how tough things can be without parents."

A big smile was given to Miss Militia in response. "You mean it? You really mean it?"

A nod. "Yes. I do. There uh...just won't be any creative uses of my powers involved. Strictly platonic."

Another pout. "Fine. I can do platonic."

"Good. Now if you'll head down to the lobby you can leave with the tour group. And since you'll be getting down there before them..." She gave a slightly critical glance to Shepards clothes. "How about I call down and have them set you up with an Armsmaster shirt?" A conspiratory wink.

Shepard gave her a wink back. "I'd much rather a Miss Militia one now!"

Her eyes crinkled in a smile. "Sure. I can do that. Now run along."

Shepard gave her a hug before literally skipping out the door. Once the sounds of her footfalls faded into the distance Armsmaster turned to face Miss Militia. "Not a word of this. Never. Ever. A word of this."

I was slightly shocked by a voice I hadn't heard before. No speaker present meant it was coming from the intercoms. "Oh, I don't know Colin. I thought it was pretty funny."

Well. Shit. It wasn't a crime if it was an accident, was it? I mean, they were in their base and all in costuming. Like, heroes and villains were expected to spy on each other in costume, right?

"Dragon. How long have you been...the entire time, of course." He sighed. "Fine, same to you. Never a word to anyone..."

Our interaction with the wards was starting to wind down and I decided to both toss out another wrench today as well as possibly confirm a theory. "Hey...uh, Clockblocker? Vista? Could I talk to you one on one for a minute?"

The guide looked a little out of sorts and held up her hands. "Unfortunately, the Wards don't..."

Clockblocker cut in. "Nah Ma'am, it's fine. I've got time for one of my fans." He shot me a wink and while the woman frowned she didn't object further.

The three of us ventured away from the group and into the corner of the room.

"So what's up T...o make you want to us like this?" A weird tone and pause there I noted down for later. Even Vista shot him a look.

"Look. I don't know if you guys can do anything. I guess it's more a problem for the police but I don't have any actual evidence so they can't do anything and it's just my word against theirs and..." I didn't have to fake the frustration and desperation in my voice.

"Whoa. Whoa. Slow down, maybe we can help." Clockblocker held up his hands while Vista gave me a sad look.

"Well, there's these three girls at my school. They've been bullying me for over a year and there's no evidence and no one will say anything because they're the popular girls and I'm just skinny outcast Taylor and the staff doesn't help me and they even suspended me earlier this week for "slipping grades" and..."

"It's ok. It's ok." Vista said, warping space to put a hand on my shoulder. "Where do you go to school? And what kind of bullying?"

"Well, I go to Winslow." A noticeable flinch from Vista though Clockblocker didn't react. "And it's a lot of things. Trashing or stealing my homework and class projects. Pushing me around, calling me names, throwing juice and stuff on me..."

Both of them were obviously upset at this point. "Then they stopped, eventually. And I thought it was going to get better, but..." I glanced and Vista. "Maybe she shouldn't be here for this part? It's pretty bad."

The hand on my shoulder tightened slightly. "No. It's ok, I'm a Hero. I can handle it." She said in her most stern voice and it almost made me break my somberness with how adorable it was.

"Ok...well." I paused, making a show of obviously composing myself. Well, partially making a show. It still wasn't easy to think about. "I came back to school after break and there was this smell. And I opened my locker and it was full of...stuff. And they pushed me in and locked the door. And I was trapped there for hours and it was horrible and I blacked out and then someone finally opened the door and I broke and I screamed and I attacked him and I spent a week in the psych ward after they cleaned up all my infections and..."

"Whoa. Whoa. Infections? What was in that locker?"

I stilled, and went a bit green remembering. My voice came out low and raw with repressed horror. "Before break they filled it and left it the entire break to rot and fester. With...with...used tampons and pads. Several bathroom trashcans worth."

There was dead silence. And then a look of revulsion across Vistas face. Clockblocker actually stumbled a step back and leaned on the wall. I was pretty sure that he'd be practically green in the face if any of it was showing. And then Vista was latched around my waist. "Oh. Oh my god. That's so. That's so...I don't even have words. On my god."

"Yeah. But there were" I made air quotes, my voice bitter. "No witnesses. The fucking golden trio. Emma Barns. Madison Clements. Sophia Hess." I didn't even have to watch to notice the way that Clockblocker froze against the pillar or Vista's hold on me tightened.

There was silence again before Clockblocker finally spoke. "You're...sure those are the names? Just so, uh, we know who to follow up on?"

"Absolutely. I've got an entire notebook at home filled with everything they've done to me...if you think that would be useful."

Vista took a step back and looked up at me, repressed fury clearly etched into her features. "Oh. Yes. Yes it will. I promise you Taylor that we will take care of this. That's my word as a Hero."

Clockblocker nodded behind her. "Yeah...yeah. Me to. I mean, mine to. We'll make sure that this gets handled."

I gave them as big a smile as I could manage with my current mood, but actual relief and appreciation managed to show through. "Thank you. Thank you so much. You don't know how much this means to me."

I guess it was easy to summon tears on demand because they had certainly come easy enough for me.


	13. Chapter 13

AN: A few different happenings that arn't shown in the story proper because of point of views and skipping some time.

1:

Taylor: "So. You got yourself tazed by Armsmaster."

Shepard Grins. "It was quite shocking."

Taylor: *Groan* "And what were you planning on doing if he didn't object?"

*raised eyebrow and smirk.*

Taylor: "No. No. Don't answer that. Don't want to know."

2:

Vista: "Over a year Armsmaster!"

*Frown* "Be that as it may, Shadow Stalker is an effective Ward and..."

Clockblocker: "Feminine hygiene products! Used, rotted..." *Violently shudders.*

*Frown intensifies* "While that sounds terrible, I'm afraid we only have her word..."

Vista / Clockblocker: "Fucking bullshit."

*Frown reaches critical levels* "..."

Is cut off by intercom. "Boss. Dauntless here. After I finished with the school I got in touch with some of my old police buddies and from there poked into medical records with Panaceas help who was quite horrified when I told her why I needed confirmation. Turns out she knows the girl."

*Frown breaks and he sighs.* "What did you find?"

"You're not going to believe it boss. There was an incident involving a locker..."

3:

Taylor: "So. You weren't in there very long at all. Were you actually able to build it?"

*Blink* "Uh. Build an entire omni in 5 minutes? Anthropologist no. I'm good, but I doubt even Tali was that good and she was the best biological combat engineer I knew. No. I used his nanoforges to flash me up the key parts I couldn't make with more mundane means and then used his more mundane tools to cut off and steal of few pieces of the more rare elements and materials I'd be hard pressed to get my hands on otherwise."

*Nod* "Ok. That makes more sense.

...

4:

Dennis: "Hey, Taylor!"

Taylor: "What's up Dennis? Dean not coming?"

*Shake head* "No. He's busy. A, uh, friend wanted to play with us though. If that's ok."

*Smile* "Of course that's ok."

*Younger girl steps in* "Hi Taylor! Dennis told me about you and your crazy friend! I'm Missy!"

And then the girl hugged her.

*Blink* Ah. Well. That answers that question.

"So, you look over the character creation process at all?"

"Yeah. I think I'm going to play an Eclipse caste. They seem pretty awesome."

*Shepard as she walks in from a back room* "I'm going to play a Dawn."

Dennis flinches slightly. "I know you're new to this so I guess I can expect you to know these things. Dawn caste aren't really...optimal."

*Raised eyebrow* "How so?"

"Well, it's the spread of their innate favored abilities. It's suboptimal to actually specialize in a bunch of different ways to inflict damage..."

"Psh. You're seeing it all wrong. You -always- have the tool you need for a job..."

*chuckle* "Ok, ok. That's fine. The campaign is designed for unoptimized characters anyways..."

AN2: Keep in mind before reading: Shep -is- mentally 30, teenage body and hormones aside.

...

It had taken her nearly a week to track down her target. I week of sorting through all available data (granted, that only took a few minutes to organize) and then actually applying her human mind to solving the problem with the pieces of data she had. Things like ranges of operations based on the movement speed of the dogs, how frequently they did their jobs, outlining various gang territories within the field of research, jobs over time...

It was a mess and probably the most complicated problem that she had ever solved. But she also had the most satisfied feeling in her brain and body when she found herself vindicated by having caught sight of the gang shortly after they had robbed the Ruby Dreams casino.

From there she had followed them back to what was likely their base of operations. It took a little guess work given the speed of the dogs but she'd rightfully guessed that they wouldn't ride them all the way back to their base so the actual area that she had to search using her 3 block radius was reasonably small. The dogs having (A surprisingly small number) of flees helped.

She'd camped out at a nearby shop while they were in their base and only started moving again once they broke to go their separate ways. From there she'd tailed Tattletale back to her apartment and noted it down before leaving to go report in to Shepard.

It was actually pretty crazy how well she could tail someone with her power. It was a pretty large range of omniscience. To account for the fact that she didn't know the other girl's thinker power, if she had one at all, she hadn't used any kind of active scanning or tracking. rather, she'd relied on the senses of bugs in her area as they went about their normal day and made sure to never once enter anywhere near their lines of sight.

It was with a great deal of excitement then that at 10am she barged into Shepard's new apartment that she'd acquired with funds beaten out of gang members over the past few days.

"Aimei! Success!" I shouted into the room with a great deal of cheer.

The cheer faded away instantly as I noticed the strange man (and the fantastic aroma) walking out of the kitchen. Maybe a slightly above face but a very nice body, late teens to early 20s...mind out of the gutter Taylor. I was on the defensive until I noticed Shepard reclining on the couch in a bathrobe. It took me a few seconds to connect the dots before I blushed beat red.

"Uh. Hi?" The man finally said, holding out his hand. "I'm Jeff. I guess you're Taylor?"

I nodded slowly while tossing Shepard a questioning glance to which she rolled her eyes.

He must have picked up on it because he quickly cut it. "Oh, no. She hasn't mentioned anything important. Just that you were a friend of hers that might be dropping by this morning."

"Though I didn't actually expect you to barge in like that. Could have been awkward. Well, to you and Jeff anyways." A shrug and a glance tossed to Jeff who shrugged as well.

"You don't make it through living in a college dorm without getting used to it."

My blush intesfied slightly before he tossed both of us a smile and headed towards to door. "Anyways, breakfast is in the kitchen. I've got some things to take care of. Call me sometime."

And then he was gone out the door.

I took a few minutes to compose myself and thought over what Shepard had been up to the past few days. Working in her lab, investigating Leet and Uber. When had she had time to meet someo...

Blink. "That was Uber?"

She gave me a smirk.

"You -slept- with Uber?"

The smirk intensified. "He can master -any- skill Taylor. -Any- skill."

My blush reached critical mass.

"Did you at least use protection?" I managed to deadpan in my best dad voice.

"Of course!" She replied cheerfully. "We had our costumes on almost the entire time!"

If this was one of those Japanese cartoons I would have fallen with my legs twitching in the air. Instead I facepalmed and very loudly groaned.

"That was bad and you should feel bad for it."

Smirk.

Damnit.

"You know. I saw the add that someone posted about kidnapping Uber for a date. I'd hadn't taken it seriously, let alone suspected you. He was ok with, you know, the age thing?"

"Huh. That was silly of you. And yeah. I just told him my power de-aged me. That's more or less true."

Groan. "Fine. Fine. Did you at least get something productive out of it?"

"Oh, we were very pro..."

I held up my hands. "NO! No. I meant towards our plans and stuff."

Blink and the fading of a smirk. "Oh. Kinda. Leet's got some old tech that doesn't work any more I can scavenge parts from. They're going to sell them to me at a reasonable cost. As far as he knows I'm a Thinker that can salvage bits and parts of other peoples tinker tech and make things from them. Oh, and they're more than happy to follow our rules once we take over the city."

I paused. "Wait. Really?"

"Yeah. Don't know if he thinks I'll actually pull it off, but if I do...well, I can be quite persuasive."

Blink. "Wait, you traded..."

She held up her hand. "Whoa. No, no. Not at all. I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that. I mean it's a good or service that people can trade just like anything thing else as long as it's strictly and 100% their choice to do so but that wasn't the case! We had a business meeting about the Tinkering stuff and then my plans for the city. We hit it off and got along. Everything that happened after that were two consenting adults that were interested in each other... and very good at what they do." Wink.

I blushed anew and pinched the bridge of my nose. "Fine, ok. I get it..." I smirked at her. "But I thought we had something Shep."

She just grinned at me. "Oh honey, of course we do. This is just a fling. Besides, as good as he is, he's still a guy. He can't "master" being a girl...well, not without Panacea's help, anyways. And there's just some things you need a girl for..." She chuckled, probably at a mental scenario that was conjuring for her before shaking her head.

My blush intensified again. "Fine. Fine. Point Shepard. Every damned time."

She pouted slightly. "It's not about winning Taylor. It's about enjoying the bout."

She stood up and cinched her bathrobe closed before walking to the kitchen. "Now, how about you tell me what had you so excited while we eat a breakfast cooked with masterful skill?"

With the things the smell was doing to my stomach I had no recourse but to agree to this course of action.


	14. Chapter 14

AN: Unrelated to the story, but part of me is calling to write an Alpha Protocol fic. Partially due to the lack of them and partially because Sis was criminally underused in the game itself.

Meh. Maybe when I finish this.

Handwavium note: Yes, Danny freaked about the changes. Yes, Taylor played the throwing a temper tantrum teenage rebellion card. No, he's not aware of the suspension. (Winslow is a shithole with shit uptake on things like that).

I didn't enjoy writing any of that when I made an attempt at it, so I didn't.

...

After eating together and then spending the day hanging out, which consisted mostly of us trading our usual banter while she worked on things around her warehouse and I put more time into researching the local happenings, we found ourselves standing outside Tattletale's apartment in full costume. My little spies informed me that she was currently home and browsing on the internet though the details were lost due to lack of bugs with the required vision being naturally in her apartment.

We were both in full costume. I found myself mildly surprised at the fact that she had one but she'd informed me that the first thing she'd done upon realizing how this world worked was to acquire one. More over, apparently Parian was "quite enjoyable and fun company." I'd take her word for it though I did wonder what wonders she could come up with it I provided her with my materials. Something to think about another day.

For once I actually thought that I looked better than Shepard and my costume was certainly more functional than her black body suit. When I inquired I was informed "I'm used to wearing real armor. This is just the under suit for when I finish making the stuff. Though I expect you'll want to protect your BFF's life and draw me up a spider silk version..."

For better or worse, I couldn't bring myself to argue.

"So...are you sure this is going to work? I mean it seems a bit..."

She tossed a grin my direction. "Panacea, Armsmaster, Uber...I'd say my track record with dealing with these situations is pretty good."

I rolled my eyes. "You kidnapped Panacea, got tazed by Armsmaster, and slept with Uber."

"Exactly!" Her voice was ladened with enthusiasm. "Fantastic track record."

Sigh. "Ok, what exactly does this note say?"

She raised an eyebrow at me. "That would ruin half the fun. Just deliver it!"

"...fine."

I had my bugs fly the letter up to the window and a few of the sturdier ones "knock" on it a few times. To her credit she immediately caught on after the second knock. After glancing around with some suspicion she went to the window and took the note before reading it. She was still for a few moments in what I was sure was deep thought before she nodded to herself.

She then walked over to the door without bothering to change out of her pajamas and opened it. Not that I could see her proper I took in her image. She was a pretty blonde teen maybe a year older than me. She was (Of course) better proportioned than I was and had a striking smattering of freckles across her nose. More prominently was the very fox like grin that she was sporting.

She thrust her hands out towards us, held together at the wrists, and her grin just grew when I flinched slightly.

"If my lovely kidnappers would apply the handcuffs so we can be on our way?"

I blinked. "Uh." And then tossed a look to Shepard. "We're kidnapping another one?"

She shrugged. "It's called plausible deniability. She can truthfully tell anyone that she needs to that she was kidnapped." She gave her a critical eye. "I did specify in your note that you should change into your costume."

The grin just got bigger. "Which tells me that you play by the rules, even if in a very weird way. "Hey! We know who you are and where you live! We would like to kidnap Tattletale but respect the rules enough not to do so unless you give your consent." If I'm reading it right, and I know I am, you would have just left if I hadn't."

Shepard nodded. "Yeah, pretty much. Either you changed and then we kidnapped you or we just pretended this never happened. When you're out and in costume you're almost always with your team, so..."

"So the best way to kidnap me is when I'm at home but causes the problem of me being in my civ identity. To be honest I...can't think of a single other parahuman that treats it quite like -this- much of a game. This is like actually seeing them as rules rather than guidelines most people honor."

I shrugged. "Sure, with friends or potential ones anyways. We'll chat about that later. You, uh, sure you don't want to get into costume?"

That ever persistent grin hadn't faded. "Nah. Cuff me and take me to your secret lair and do your worst." Wink.

I felt my eye twitch slightly. Another one, really?

Shepard smirked at her. "Aren't you a little inexperienced for that?"

Tattletale matched her smirk for smirk. "Aren't you a little old to be wearing a teenagers body?"

Blink. "Touché."

"Besides." Her eyes flicked from Shepard to me. "I was talking to her."

Blush. Twitch. Twitch. FUCK. Nope. Not playing this game. Derail! Derail! Must win! I wasn't going to lose every single bout to too insufferably smug older girls! Quick! How would Shepard derail?!

Without thinking it through, I quickly stepped forwards and after tossing her a sultry smile gave her a peck on the lips before stepping back and smirking at the dumbfounded expression on her face. A feat only made possible by the fact I hadn't quite finished the lower portion of my mask. "Well. If you're already making those kinds of promises I think we're going to get along just fine."

Tattletale sputtered in disbelief for a second before shaking her head and tossing a slight glare at Shepard. "You're a terrible influence on her you know. I can tell that much already."

Shepard just smirked and rubbed my head affectionately. "Oh. I think I'm a wonderful influence on her. Just happens those two terms are synonymies sometimes. now get in gear and let's get out of here."

That Vulpine smile was back in full swing as the three of us headed towards Shepard's apartment.

...

An hour later we were sitting around in Shepard's living room and had just finished more or less outlying the situation to Tattletale, Lisa. She was returning the favor by giving us a rather blank look.

"So let me get this straight." She finally spoke up. "You're intending on becoming essentially the Warlords of the city and controlling the underworld in order to twist it towards positive ends while also removing the more morally terrible aspects of organized crime by becoming the organization in control? And you want me to join?"

Shepard and I shared a look and a nod.

Lisa's blank look gave away to a large vulpine grin. "Of course you're already aware you're going to have to deal with the big power players Kaiser and Lung."

She glanced at Shepard and paused. "Kaiser yes but Lung no?" She thought about that for a moment still looking at Shepard. "You're aware that the E88 needs to be taken out but you think you can leave Lung to his region?"

Another pause. "No, not left alone. You plan on absorbing him..."

Shepard nodded. "More or less. I had Taylor pour over the statistics. Outside of petty crime and butting heads with the E88 the ABB mostly stays out of serious trouble. Really, outside of some drug policies and getting rid of forced prostitution the area under Lungs control can mostly be left alone. Handled carefully and phrased in the right way and I think I can get him on board. He's always been content to be the dragon you don't poke."

Lisa nodded slowly. "I can see that working...it would be a very dangerous line to walk but it's definitely possible. Well, that aside. You're of course going to remove the merchants..."

"With fire and brimstone." I cut in vehemently. "They're a blight on the city."

"Hm. Most people look down on them but not quite like that. Mentioned statistics so...the statistics paint a worse picture than the surface does?"

"Yes." I replied simply. "They need to be removed. Jail is preferable but if not..." A slight shudder on my part but I resigned myself. "I'll not complain if Shepard does what she does."

"Which really only has two modes." Shepard interjected. "Talking. And when that fails, bullets."

"Simple but decisive, at least. Thankfully I don't think many people will make too much of a stir if that happens to the merchants. You'll need to be a little more careful dealing with people that don't have such a universally bad rap, though. And of course avoid having it decisively tied to you... but you already knew that. Some kind of black project government work before you got powers?" A pause. "You don't have powers?... No. Not quite right. You're not a baseline human but you're not parahuman either."

"It's complicated." Shepard cut in. "And I doubt you'll be able to put it together with any of the pieces available to you, as impressive as your power seems. Some kind of super Sherlock Holmes?"

Smugness. "Pretty much. Good deduction yourself."

"You're not exactly being subtle. Though I'm guessing with your cape name..."

"Yeah. It's hard to know so much and not use it. So I've just embarrassed it."

Shepard smiled. "That's perfectly fine. We've all got our quirks. You should have seen the crew I used to run with."

"You'll have to tell me later. But, ok. You've kinda got powers but not. So what's your deal?"

Shepard drummed her fingers. "I'd say the easiest way for you to mentally classify me until I give you the full scope is that I'm a damned good soldier, an even better spy and assassin, and I've got enough knowledge of science and tech beyond baseline that I can salvage any tinker tech that falls within my knowledge pool and make stuff from it."

Tattletale's eyes widened slightly. "That's...pretty broken. If it falls within your realm of knowledge...advanced knowledge, but only specific parts. Indicates specific tech trees where technology progressed along certain lines or close enough to those lines for you to understand it. Suggests real knowledge and understanding rather than random tinker insight. Suggests future knowledge base." Pause. "Knowledge from the future?" Pause, looks at Shepard. "Doesn't fit exactly. Temporal displacement?"

Blink. I spoke up. "Damn. You're really good."

Smug, vulpine grin. "I know. So that's it? You're some kind of soldier / spy from the future?"

A mild sigh on Shepard's part. "Infiltrator. Battlefield tactics, infiltration, wet work, and assassinations. Genetically and cybernetically enhanced. And yeah, from a future but not from your future. We never had any of this parahuman stuff."

Lisa nodded. "Yeah, makes sense. Probably diverged around the same time Earth Aleph did. Just a much further removed timeline if you never had any Paras at all."

Shepard face palmed. "Every. Single. Time. Not one shocked person!"

"You've told others? Of course you've told others. Taylor knows. How many more?" Glance. "One? Ok, yeah, one other person." Pause. "I noticed that Taylor's complexion is a little too clear and her footsteps are a little too heavy for someone of her size. Shared genetic alterations? I don't think you have the tech for that..." Glance. "No, you don't. At least not right now. Only person that could do that...Panacea knows." Blink. "Damn. You're good at making allies! Any others?"

Shepard smirked. "I have a rather extensive history with making odd allies..."

I shot a smile of my own at Shepard. "Well, so far, she's kidnapped Panacea and somehow turned that into being somewhat on her good side. She broke into the Rig to use Armsmaster's lab..."

"That was you?! No, of course that was you. Man, he was pissed when he figured out you used his lab and he just let you go. There's a bunch of buzzing excitement over there about that and the fact there's a new tinker in town. Boss has me looking for you, actually."

"And she slept with Uber." I finished, tossing an annoyed glance at Lisa.

Lisa just blinked and shrugged. "Makes sense. She's basically exuding sexuality and liberalness and he can master any skill."

I face palmed. Yes. Dealing with both of them was going to be a nightmare.

"And I don't lock up when someone kisses me." Shepard gave Lisa a teasing smile who in turn looked a little sheepish.

"One of the main drawbacks of my power. So many things you don't want to know or think about when you're, uh, involved with someone. Like, she brushed her teeth 3 hours before that and there were still tens of thousands of bacteria in her mouth."

Shepard slowly nodded her head. "And? On noes. All those non-harmful bacteria." She chuckled. "No, I get it. At your age and lack of experience all of those things would be overwhelming. It's like how teenagers don't want to think about their partner being human and needing to expel biological waste. You grow out of it with age. With you it's things like that and a lot more than you don't have the experience to just shrug your shoulders and do thing anyways."

Lisa blinked. "Experience can get past stuff like that?"

It was my turn to cut in with a grin. "Sure. Humans are super adaptable. Like, all that closeness stuff with other people is like an 8-10 on your 1-10 scale. But then all that data you don't want to think about is like an 9-12 on your grossness scale so it cancels out. But as you live with your power you'll eventually get desensitized to that stuff so it will fall to something more reasonable."

"Assuming your libido doesn't fall at the same rate due to teenage hormones dying out and having mentally wired your brain to reject it. I'd say make sure your sexuality remains strong and don't mentally write it off until the parts that bother you eventually become more normal. Expose yourself to them in ways not directly tied to sexuality so you don't directly associate it while also speeding up the process of desensitization. Speaking of which."

She paused with a thoughtful look. "I'm assuming your power requires data input to actually do anything? Otherwise if it's running rampant it's just playing with the stuff already in your head?"

Lisa nodded. "Yeah. It's intuition. I need data to actually intuit from..."

Shepard shrugged. "Look into sensory deprivation then. Less senses feeding you input, less data to wig you out."

Lisa actually looked thoughtful in her silence rather than disturbed. But despite my lack of experience if someone told me that I would be deeply disturbed by any form of intimacy I'd be pretty horrified.

"Huh. Thanks. One of those differences between being able to put all the pieces together and actually having a fleshed out knowledge base to work from."

Shepard smiled at her. "Yeah. Trust me, I'd imagine if you make it to my age and actually make an effort to build up your knowledge base while getting there you'll make me look like a child by comparison with that power of yours. For now I suggest you study cognitive science while you have time so you have a solid grasp of how the brain works, interacts, etc."

"Yeah. I'll do that." She shook her head. "Moving off the topic of my sexuality, that answers what you do. Obviously she" she tilted her head towards me. "Controls bugs. Which is really versatile. What can you do with it?"

"I have access to perfect individual control and sensory input from every simple life form above a certain size in a radius of 3 city blocks."

Lisa blinked. "Holy fuck. You're basically omniscient in a 6 block diameter even without the other things you can do with them. That's how you found me! I would have noticed if any were acting weird but you just left them doing what they were doing and gathered their senses passively."

I grinned. "Yeah. It's pretty strong. That's not even the best part. See, she designed this tool for me that she calls "The Rig." It's a computer with specialized inputs..."

"So that you can control it with your bugs. The amount of data you can pull off the internet or even screens of any kind is only limited by the number of bugs and the hardware..."

I waved my hand in a so-so gesture. "Kind of. I've still only got one human brain to actually process the information all of my bugs sort out for me. So I can use low level functions with all my bugs to, say, grab all information and trends related to the Undersiders. But then I have to use my human brain to actually study it and figure out what it means..."

"Which is where I come in. You can distill the entire internet down to the relevant information on a subject and then I can eat it and use the organized information to spit out an incredibly detailed analysis. How long does it take you to do this?"

I shrugged. "Uh. Right now? If I wanted all the data that's on the internet about, say, Armsmaster it would probably take a few days. He's been around a long time and I've only got one rig. Once I'm fully up and running maybe an hour? Less with more? And then there would be a massive base of information on Armsmaster sorted based on low level processes I can multitask with. But at that point I'd have to go through it all."

Blink.

And then she was across the distance hugging me. Why did people keep doing that?

"You're...like, the best thing ever. I'm going to use you in so many ways!"

Two of them! Why are there two of them?! Gaaak.

"Sorry. Already called dibs... but I'll share." I watched Shepard wink at me.

Two of them.

I just shook my head. "Fine. Fine. There's enough of me for both of you." I pushed her off, despite how nice this felt.

She sat back on the couch and gave me a vulpine smirk. "You're giving me the internet. There's pretty much nothing I won't do for...or too you." She winked at me.

Anthropologist damnit I blushed again. Damned teenage hormones.

I held up my hands defensively. "Nuh uh. I'm going to fragrantly abuse my current status of being in the hard taboo zone and declare myself off limits."

Shepard smirked. "Only applies when dealing with age gaps. She's what, a year older than you?" She glanced at Lisa.

"16." She said, not losing her grin.

"Yup. Most of society is fine with that. You don't have a taboo shield against her."

"Not. Helping." I hissed at her.

"Ok. Ok. Let's focus on the more important topics before we have to declare Taylor a case 53 with red skin."

"Case 53?" Shepard asked.

"Uh. Yeah. Monstrous capes. Shared history of not remembering anything before their trigger. All of them have a certain tattoo somewhere on their bodies. Faultline's crew here in town has two of them. Newter and Gregor."

Shepard nodded. "Ah. There's the Shadow Conspiracy group. Why the hell would they brand them, though? That's just giving the game away."

"You mentioned you thought there was a shadow conspiracy group here before. Why?"

Shepard shook her head. "So innocent. There's -always- a shadow conspiracy group. No memories? Monstrous appearance? Branding? That's weapon testing if I've ever seen it. Back home, Cerberus did it with a bunch of different creatures. Trying to breed weapons or control the Reapers or any number of other things. You mentioned triggers? All of them are parahumans with non-human appearances or biology?"

Lisa nodded. "Yeah. You think that...hm. Yeah, it would fit. Bit crazy but...someone's playing around with powers?"

"I'd put money on that, yeah. Either inducing them or fucking with them one of the two. Could be something like genetic engineering on the...whatever the brain regions you guys have that causes powers. Find some subjects with one that hasn't woken up, or even one that has, and then try to tweak it to get different results. It's what I would do if I had resources and was amoral in this world. We're getting off topic, though."

"Oh! Right. Ok, so Kaiser, Merchants, Lung. Last one you have to worry about is Coil, who..." She paused. "You're already aware and worried about Coil...you think he's going to be the most problematic? That's true, but how did you? Oh. Just finished talking about shadow conspiracies. Innately suspicious of anyone that isn't following the general trends at large or a more specific trend that you can see. Paranoia says he's the most dangerous."

"You know. I really do appreciate having you around. I don't even have to answer your questions, you do it for me! Really appeals to the laziness in me. For the sake of appearing to have a discussion, though. You mentioned a boss. Not one of the others, probably weren't referring the Undersiders leader..."

"Grue." I supplied.

"Probably not Grue. Guessing your boss is Coil. So either a mole inside the Undersiders or..."

"The Undersiders work for him. They don't know it, though. They know they have a boss, but not who. He keeps us on retainer and lets us do what we want but will offer us paid jobs now and then. Dunno why. They're random things like "Rob this" or "break in here." I haven't been able to see a pattern."

Shepard smirked at her. "Well, get my glorious Shadow Broker here a list before you go and she'll gather all the data about them and things that happened around the same time. Possible waves, that sort of thing. We can forward the results to you so you can use that power of yours to figure it out from a complete dataset."

"That...that would be fantastic, thanks. But yeah. He's got a carrot or stick for each of us but the other's only see the carrot. Regent just doesn't care about much of anything but has...family issues that Coil is keeping him out of sight of. Bitch, Hellhound to you PG folks, just wants to take care of her dogs. Grue has a little sister and custody issues Coil is "helping" him with... and I got recruited at gunpoint."

"Hm. Seems a bit heavy handed compared to the others. Pretty much guaranteed to cause resentment."

Lisa shrugged. "He's got some sort of power. He says it controls destiny and I haven't been able to figure it out. When he displayed it to me, he had me flip a coin and called the result correctly each time. When we go on some dangerous jobs he'll give us a go ahead or a not go ahead. Or a go loud or go quite. That sort of thing. It always worked."

I glanced between the two of them and when neither of them spoke up I ventured. "Is it always two things?" They turned to look at me. "I mean, "Go, don't go." "Heads. Tails." They're binary. Two possibilities, pick one. I mean, knowing that, I'd try to get him into a situation where both binary options he has are bad ones."

Lisa's mouth open and closed like a fish. "I...wow. I never thought about that pattern before. So many possibilities. I might actually be able to figure it out now with a little more work."

I gave her a grin. "So he can call coins back to back. Has he ever given you further direction in the middle of a mission?"

She paused for a second and shook her head. "No. Some kind of Thinker limit dependant on the complexity of an event maybe..." She paused. "No. Not enough data on hand here and I've already used my powers a lot today. Going to run into a headache if I push to deep. I'll invest a day when I have a chance and see what I can figure out. Thank you."

I smirked. "Shepard's been teaching me a lot about noticing things. "Reject what you think you know. Reject what society tells you it knows. What do you actually know?" And then work from there. He says he controls destiny? I call bullshit. What do we actually know? He can accurately predict binary choices."

Shepard reached over and rubbed my hair as she was prone to do and smiled broadly at me. "Growing up so fast."

"Ok girls." Lisa ventured. "This has been a blast, and I'm totally on board. I'll stick to my role with the Undersiders for now and play double agent."

"Sounds like a plan." Shepard acknowledged and I agreed. "Need to test Coil's power a bit, if you can. See if you can get future information back to yourself with it. Come up with some kind of code system that no one but you understands. Make it nonsensical so the codes only have meaning to their particular selves and maybe even only to your intuition. If he's a precog of some kind you may be able to pass information to yourself and figure things out if you can trick him into doing so."

She gave me a look. "Something I've been working on myself since there are precogs in this world. Being able to send yourself a message from the future or a timeline that doesn't exist because of changes you make now is a very useful ability. Something for us to put on our list of things to work on, but of more immediate use for Lisa. Guessing she can do that herself."

Lisa nodded. "Yeah. That's a really good idea."

"So. We know who you are. Should we, like, unmask?"

Lisa held up a hand. "No. Just in case Coil catches on or something I don't want to be able to give him information on you two. You are my best chance for getting out from under his thumb, after all."

She paused. "So. Hm. What are we going to call this little conspiracy of ours?"

Shepard smirked. "Oh. I thought that was obvious. Cerberus. The three headed bitch."


	15. Chapter 15

It's amusing where I'd found my life these days. It'd only been a little over a week since I met Shepard and it'd been completely turned on it's head. My tormentors were likely being handled by the PRT now, I'd completely and radically change my appearance, my self confidence was not only at something people would consider passing but actually pretty good (my power was awesome!), and I had friends! Exalted with Missy, Dennis, and Shepard was a fantastic experience. I'd even been occasionally texting Panacea about the normal inanities that people did so.

She'd apparently taken Shepard's advice to heart, if her texts were anything to go by. It wasn't overt but she would occasionally comment about the physically attractive features of one of her coworkers or patients. I did find it interesting that it seemed to be strictly the female ones but I supposed that if you were bisexual then completely shifting to the opposing gender of your crush was one way to create distance from the issue.

The most recent change to my life was I was now a high school graduate. Via a GED, mind you, but it was basically the same thing. I'd given it a great deal of consideration and at the end of the day the past week of doing things while being suspended had opened my eyes to how much more productive and important things there were to do than sit in a class room even ignoring the bullying problem.

I cheated, more than a little. It wasn't hard to find a room within three blocks of the testing center to set up my rig. From there I just used my bugs to find answers and solutions that I needed. I had to do this both less than I was expecting and less than I'd hoped but at the end of it I'd passed with an 85%. I probably could have gotten a perfect score but I'd been worried that would send flags out to anyone that might be paying attention to such things to track newly triggered Thinkers. I knew it was one of the ways I kept tabs on such things.

Shepard had been...less than pleased, when she found out. I thought that she'd support my choice to focus on the more important stuff and while she did she was begrudgingly sad about it. "A world that requires a 15 year old to cheat out of high school in order to fight systemic and very real evil is not pleasant one. But... humanity is very much fighting for it's survival even if most people don't think it through past the next Endbringer attack. I guess it bothers me that in the end I can't actually voice a logical objection. I will say this, though: when you're not doing research for important things and you have access to the rig I expect you to educate yourself at least to a high school graduate level. And beyond, time permitting. "

I couldn't find it in me to argue with her.

Now, I was on my way to a meeting between myself, her, Lisa, and Amy. Shepard had explained that it was best to make sure all the cards were on the table between prospective allies rather than having Amy figure it out later. If she didn't agree with it now then she'd back out of assosiating with us but would likely respect the rules enough not to use what she knew about our civilian identites to come after us. If she found out later emotions might run too high for her to stick to such things.

...

"Amy!" I said enthusiastically as I opened the door. I did this mostly too offset the shock that flashed across the face on seeing me in my full bug themed costume. I gave her a large hug before whispering in her ear "just call me Shadow Broker today. We have a guest."

Amy's tenseness escalated for a second when I hugged her and explained before gradually fading away. After a few moments she pulled away and after giving a somewhat skeptical look proceded to nod to show her understanding. "Another hero, or..."?

I shook my head. "Not exactly. I'll explain when we're inside. Shepard's just going by N7 for now. She hasn't chosen I proper name. I just told her to go with "Infiltrator" but she said that peoples habits about telling others all about their powers via their names is all kinds of silly. Not that she used those words...I'm kinda curious about that myself but what are you going to do?"

Amy chuckled as she walked in. "It's mostly heroes that do that. PR reasons. Easier to market that way and it's not like most of them can avoid showing what their powers do. But yeah, if it goes up that there's a cape named Infiltrator I can see that making it harder to do things."

"Yeah." Shepard said as she met us in the hallway coming out of the kitchen with drinks. The three of us were heading towards the living room. "I thought I had a clever thought on that and then shot it down. I played this game you all have here, Starcraft, and so I was like "Ghost" sounds cool. But again, still too close to the truth. So then I thought maybe one of the named Ghosts? So Nova sounded good, plus it would totally throw people off. But then I figured there's a lot of geeks on the forum so they'd probably spot the connection. Still might do it. I can do some pretty cool nova effects if I tweak my biotics right."

Amy blinked. "You can change your powers?"

"Oh, yeah. It's kinda like circuitry. I'm sure you noticed the weird shit that was weirder than the cybernetics in my body? It kinda works like power circuitry. Depending on how it's "wired" I can do different things. Takes time to do, but it's pretty neat."

We reached the living room where Lisa was hanging out in full Tattletale costume with her laptop propped up on her lap.

"And here's our guest..." I started to introduce.

"The illustrious Tattletale." The girl said with her vulpine grin.

"...Isn't she a villain? With, uh, the Undersiders, right?"

Tattletale held up a hand. "So so. Recruited at gunpoint. Fun times. Seven and Broker here kidnapped me the other night and now I'm playing double agent for them."

Amy blinked and paused for a moment before glancing at me and Shepard and then shrugging. "Ah."

I grimaced. "Ah is all we get?"

Another shrug. "I'm assuming it was the same kind of kidnapping you pulled on me?"

Shepard nodded.

"Then yeah. Color me surprised. 7 here seems to have a knack for kidnapping young girls and bending them to her will."

I blushed and pinched the bridge of my nose, thinking that one over before turning to Shepard and raising an eyebrow. "She has a point, you know."

She held up her hands defensively. "In my defense, you brow beat me into joining. And then Amy was a good chance that presented itself and we specifically hunted down Tattletale because we needed a Thinker to complete your power set. It's not my fault that apparently every young woman with powers has serious issues."

Panacea took a drink out of her hand before going to sit down on the couch. "Everyone with powers has issues. Triggering happens when something truly terrible happens to you." She glanced at me with a small flash of sympathy on her face at that. "It's easier for second gen capes, usually, but still pretty bad. People joked about Vicky getting hers from a basketball foul. Truth was, there was a lot of pressure with everyone else having already triggered, friends and family expecting her too, trouble with her, uh, boyfriend. So she was already under at on of stress and that broke the camels back."

"Oh. Right." Shepard said. "I forgot that a psychotic break was basically the requirement for powers around here."

"Yeah. And they happen more to teenagers, and thus people in formative years, rather than more stable adults." Tattletale cut in. "So your powers come from the worst day of your life which ties it all together when you don't have much experience to shape your personality around by that point. Which leaves you with a bunch of broken people with super powers." She paused at my stare. "What? I took Seven's advice and I've been reading up on cognitive psychology. It's pretty awesome stuff."

I also took a drink from Shepard before both of us went ahead and took seats of our own.

"As nice as it is to be hanging out without you kidnapping me." Amy began. "I assume that there's a reason that you've asked me to drop by?"

I glanced at Shepard and she gave me a slight nod. "Well. We thought it would be best if we outlined our plan to you now so you could decide if you wanted to continue to assosiate with us. If not, we can part peacefully and play by the unwritten rules from here on out."

She sighed. "Well. That sounds foreboding."

"Yeah. It's not exaclty light stuff. Ok. Some basics. So, crime is systemic. You can't just punch it in the face, right? Like, we could take out the E88, the Merchants, and the ABB. After that, there would still be a bunch of unorganized crime and eventually other parahuman gangs would rush in to fill the void."

Amy tilted her head to the side in thought for a second before nodding. "Sure. That kind of thing has happened in other cities before."

I gave her a grin. "Exactly. So Shepard decided to just accept that crime would always be a thing, and super powered organized crime would always be a thing in our world, and working from that point of view take control of it. If we're in charge, we can set the rules. Heavily punish the more morally terrible crime, get rid of certain drugs from the streets as well as forced prostitution, etc."

Amy frowned. "So you're going to become a gang."

I nodded. "Kind of, yeah. Crime's always going to be a thing. We can't stop that. With Super Human villain's being a thing there will always be some of those in charge. So we want to make the crime cleaner and funnel the money generated from there and other sources into cleaning up the city and making sure humanity doesn't die out in 50 years. Probably by killing Endbringers."

Dead silence asides from Lisa choking on her drink.

I shot her a smirk. Deadpan absurdity was a skill I think I was starting to get the hang of.

"I knew you guys had bigger plans that just the city, but geez. You weren't kidding when you said this was going to be heavy."

Amy's frown had lessened a bit but she just sighed. "Give me a minute. Let me think this over."

I nodded and turned my attention back to drinking before Tattletale spoke up.

"So. There's a couple of things we need to talk about while the three of us are here."

Shepard glanced at her. "Is there a situation?"

Nod. "Yeah. Two, actually. The first I was able to pull together based on information Taylor forwarded me. You guys read about Bakuda?"

Both Shepard and I nodded.

"Well, Lungs out of town based on the patterns and crime rates you sent me. My power's telling me that he's on his way to recruit her."

I frowned while Shepard looked thoughtful. "She's unstable. If he can't keep her under control this city is going to turn into a war zone. Further it's going to destabilize the balance of power around here. It won't make my plans impossible but..."

"Yeah. Much harder. Something I thought you definitely needed to be aware of. Whatever you were planning to do to suborn Lung likely won't work with her under his thumb."

"Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

Lisa gave her one of her vulpine grins. "It's why you keep me around."

"Nah." I cut in. "We keep you around because of how you rock spandex. The powers are a bonus."

She twitched very slightly. Point Taylor.

"What's the second thing?"

"Oh. Not much. I just want broker to come under the covers with me." Delivered with a perfectly timed wink.

Slight blush on my side. Point Lisa.

"Why? Your boss suspect something?"

She shook her head. "Not at all. But he's been strongly hinting we need more firepower. I figure if I pull you in then it's cutting down on the number of variables all of us have to deal with. Plus it will give us more of an excuse to hang out. Well, when you're not in school."

I waved my hand dismissively. "Tested out earlier today, so that's not a problem. What do you think 7?"

She frowned slightly. "It'll be more dangerous than what we're doing now, but...not more dangerous than where things are going. Your gang just does robbery, right? No murder, drugs, etc.?"

Lisa nodded. "Yeah. We're clean as far as crimes go. When you think the whole cops and robbers thing with capes we're pretty much the ideal version of the robbers part. Just some teens in costumes committing crimes and foiling the heroes on your Saturday morning cartoons. Plus, the boss does give us veto powers if we don't want to do a particular crime so it might give you some control there."

"Alright, that should be fine. It's your call Taylor."

I thought about it for a second before giving a nod of acceptance. "Alright. Yeah. If you back me up on anything I want to veto I'll do it. I'll be keeping a lot of the uses of my powers on the down low but just playing myself up as a bug controlling teen who hasn't thought much beyond recon and bug swarms should be fine. Between the two of our abilities we should be able to steer the group away from any crimes that would negatively impact the economy."

Amy finally spoke up, a little shock in her voice. "You're going to go under cover with a gang and do crimes?"

I shrugged. "You can generally find the E88 and the ABB. You have a better suggestion for getting your hands on Coil other than going undercover?" I paused for a second. "That stays on the down low. He'd probably burn them if anyone knew the connection."

Lisa's grin didn't fade. "Yup. Bullet for each of us. Probably another one to any friends or family just to cover tracks."

Said shock switched to a horrified wince. "He's that bad?"

"Yeah. Worst of the worst. Shepard suspected and I've confirmed. He's got his hands in all kinds of pockets from what I can tell. Has a gang secretly on a payroll, is getting a lot of money from somewhere despite not making any real money from his official gang, has moles in the PRT. Trust me, if nothing's done and he gets to do whatever he's planning it will be bad."

"Yeah, ok. I get it. Uh. You get into a position where you get at him and I should be able to get you firepower from New Wave. Vicky still doesn't like 7 here but after mom had a stern talking to her she admitted that she may have over reacted."

Snort. "I would have been unconscious with a concussion if half my skull wasn't superior to bone."

Wince. "Yeah. I kinda figured that when I scanned you. She's going to be more careful in the future though so something good came from your pain?"

She chuckled. "Fighting banshees was pain. That? That was foreplay."

Amy blushed. Point Shepard.

"Other than that, I can't be directly involved." She said, switching topics suddenly. "Would look bad on new wave if anyone figured it out. I don't mind helping you out discreetly. Just letting you know, though, if you step over the line I'll do what I have to and involve anyone I need to bring you down."

Shepard grinned at her. "Wouldn't have it any other way. Oh, Taylor. I was able to acquire that sample you wanted. Just a single one, but... " She paused at my eager look before grinning again. "Box on the counter."

I grinned. "Ohh. Awesome!" I practically leapt over the couch to get the box and brought it back over. Both Amy and Lisa were looking expectantly as I opened it up. Both looked confused when I dumped the tiny tooth into my had.

I held Amy's hand and dropped the tooth in it. Her confusion almost imediately dropped away into a look of wonder. "I...I had no idea this was even possible." She turned her face fully towards me. "This is. Amazing. Fantastic. I've never seen a biological material like this!"

My grin just grew. "Yeah. About that. I've got a favor to ask you..."


	16. Chapter 16

AN: I forgot to mention it in an earlier chapter but; after Taylor got her upgrades Shepard started her on a more intense training program and parkor. This includes basic military CQC (whatever they're using in the future). She is by no means an expert by any stretch of the imagination but she knows how to throw a proper punch, kick, how to fall properly and one or two holds / counters. Combined with her body being deceptively strong and quick (though not peak human + ME2 upgrades like Shepard) she's a decent close range fighter.)

I turned my effort up from 0 to about 25% in this chapter just to see how it would turn out. If you think it's better, sorry to say I can't guarantee I'll be bothered to do such on anything resembling a regular basis. If you think it's worse that's good news for you.

For those few who aren't familiar with Worm: Taylor's costume consists of a black spider silk body suit overlaid in key areas with hard material. In canon it was bug carapaces. Here...it's something a little different, as you'll see. Her mask is an insect styles helmet complete with mandibles. Google search Skitter provides plenty of fanart.

Worth noting: In Canon the back of her helmet was open allowing her long hair to flow free. Shepard -wouldn't- have such a weakness in her costume and mandated that it be fully enclosed.

...

Thanks to the upgrades to my body I was fit. Very fit. I wasn't at the level where you'd see me in magazines or on women's motivational posters but I'd stack myself up against Sophia any day in fitness and that was before my upgraded muscles, bones, circulatory system, nervous system. But I wasn't at my peak yet. If I had an Exalted character sheet I'd put my Strength and Dexterity at a 3 by appearance and a 4 in practice. Because of the large amount of time I'd already invested in running that was more of a 4 apparent, 5 in practice.

I was pretty sure I could cap out at 6 effectives if continued to invest the time and effort into it in the coming months. Just short of superhuman. Between that and my armor they would likely hand me a brute one or two rating. As it was a rough guideline it was probably best to let anyone going up against me blind know that I was Olympic class in physical feats and by that point bulletproof. My appearance was definitely up to a solid 3 now that my body had further adapted to my genes. I got a tingle of thrill when I'd had to replace my bras earlier in the week.

Speaking of armor, I rubbed a hand affectionately over my new hard plates. Amy had been...enthusiastic amount making them once she felt the amazingness that were limpet teeth. While the satin weave of my silk suit would stop anything 9mm and lower if our math was correct my hard plates would stop anything shy of a .50bmg military anti material round as far as conventional firearms go. I wagered anything in .300 Winchester, the standard military sniper, ballpark was likely to still shatter a normal person's bones though. Mine I wasn't so sure about but neither was I in a hurry to test it.

It'd been a week since them meeting and I was approaching the location that I would be meeting with the Undersiders. Tattletale had told me as an unknown element I'd have to project strength. This was not something that I would find any difficulty in doing even keeping some parts of my power close to the vest.

I stepped into the worn down basketball court. It was pretty symbolic of the city as a whole. I caught the sent of rusted metal in the air and the melody of police sirens playing somewhere in the background. Spots of the court were shrouded as the nearby lights had gone out and never been replaced. Even the buildings varied between panes of dirty shattered glass or outright boarded up windows. My nose caught a scent that mirrored my thoughts as the clear aroma of stagnation wafted from a few shallow pools.

Four teens stepped out from the shadow cast by one of the buildings surrounded the court. I would have been surprised had I not had an assortment of beetles serving as heat vision in the area. As appeared to normal human senses it only told a small portion of the story compared to the sheer tapestry that my hive senses weaved for me.

The first was a broad man clad in motorcycle leathers and a helmet displaying the features of a skull. I had to give the man credit where it was due: He had managed to create a costume that was both intimidating and practical without any form of specialty supplies. I raised his threat ranking in my head by a point. Practicality was deserving of a touch of wariness. His signature darkness rolled out of his helmet and even my available heat senses failed to penetrate it.

"Grue." I inclined my head towards him in a slight nod.

To his left stood a boy perhaps a year older than myself. I hadn't asked Tattletale for any such mundane information. What I had learned would be enough to keep me from dismissing him based on his renaissance reject appearance. Frilly shirt and leggings...where was the functionality in such things? At least spandex didn't get in the way. The teen at least had the good senses to include a tazer function in the scepter that he carried. The extra reach was something that I imagined he found useful is the downplayed version of his true power.

The ability to, with concentration, hijack control of another persons body which he restricted here to simply causing spasms of parts of peoples bodies to avoid the PRT directing it's anti-human master seriousness against him and to hide his past identity. He was previously Hijack of Heartbreaker's infamous brood but had found the situation distasteful enough to leave.

That was a point to him. Heartbreaker. A man that could make anyone love him with but a glance and abused that power to it's horrifying conclusions. I had to suppress a shudder at the thought. It wouldn't do to display weakness here.

"Regent." another nod supplied. I had thought about making a show of knowledge with his other name but had decided against potentially antagonizing him.

Next was Lisa in full Tattletale regalia. A purple and white patterned spandex suit with but a simple white domino mask and letting her hair down serving to protect her identity. It was very minimalist but artfully did it's job. The placement of the domino mask both hid her distinguishing freckles while also subtly changing the contours of her face. I imagine it was a rather simple application of her power to determine that that exact tightness and placement protected her as well as a full mask.

"Tattletale." Another nod.

Of the teens present the last was the most publicly infamous. Regent would earn that title had he not chosen to discard both his former name and the full breadth of his powers but as he had made that sensible move Rachel Lindet held that honor. She had murdered her foster mother when she triggered with the power to grow any dog into a monstrous beast. The dogs were fully intact inside so it was really more of a biological "doggy tank" on demand but horrifically effective none the less.

The public wasn't aware of the specifics of her origins in particular or the nature of trigger events in general by and large so they tended to view her as a murderess. While she had left a trail of broken people that had gotten in her way there had been no other deaths attributed since then. Public opinion wasn't concerned with such details, however.

"Bitch." I said, locking eyes with her for a moment before turning my attention back to Grue. Her power had changed her brain so that she thought more in dog than human. One had to be careful with their body language with such a person. I had to show strength but not that I was attempting to be dominant. Locking eyes and then being the first to look away was my choice in this matter.

"Skitter." He said by way of greeting. We had decided that it was best to keep my status as Shepard's Shadow Broker under wraps and thus a new identity had been born. Lisa had thought that Skitter was both in theme for my power and appropriately villainess. I had agreed.

"Impressive costume." His helmet panned slowly likely giving me a thorough once over and I in turn gave him an appreciating nod.

"Thank you. A benefit of my power. You've done quite well yourself for not having access to such advantages. The leathers and helmet are certainly more protective than most costumes. I'm more inclined to treat your group with the respect granted to professionals knowing a man with such attention to practicality heads it."

He paused for a moment before responding. "Uh. Thanks. I find that when people are trying to stick you with knives it's best to have a little something more than spandex between yourself and them... you said your costume is a benefit of your power?"

"An extension and a side benefit." I explained. "I am one of the most powerful Masters in the world. I control every insect in a 3 block radius and have all of their sensory input fed to me. This essentially gives me omniscience within that range" I held up my hand and five bees float out of it before beginning a synchronized aerial dance. "One side benefit is that I can have my spiders weave silk for me. Blackwidow silk isn't quite as protective as kevlar but it's lighter, free, and I cam make it to custom order. These are all advantages I appreciate. Once I acquire Darwin bark spiders I will be able to nearly match any soft kevlar armor on the market."

Grue whistled. "That's impressive. Thought I'd heard some news program ranting about spider silk being stronger, though."

I grinned under the mask and gave him a nod of approval. "It seems that you are well informed as well. I'm afraid that's a common misconception . While is significantly Tougher and can absorb upwards of 5 times as much energy it does this by stretching to absorb and dissipate. As when placed against the human body an article of clothing or armor finds itself with limited room to stretch..." I shook my head. "The difference between Strength and Toughness. But an article that says it's 5 times stronger is much more enticing then getting the particulars of material toughness vs. material strength correct."

There was another pause of quite and I was sure if I could see under that helmet I'd find Grue quite wide eyed. "I made it a point to research such things when I discovered this application of my power." I supplied.

"Well. I'm glad to know that we're dealing with a professional. Even if you haven't done any work in the past."

I tilted my head slightly, giving a slight smile beneath my mask. He couldn't see it but it was best to stay in practice with such things.

"Oh, but I have. I thought Tattletale would have informed you of such things."

He shot a look to the Thinker who herself just held a blank look for a moment.

"Well. Can't blame you for overlooking it. I did perform the operation out of costume..."

She made a show of having her eyes widen. "That was you? Damn, Armsy was -pissed-."

"Care to share with the rest of the class?" Regent quipped from her side.

"Oh. Miss queen bee here robbed Halbeard's lab and got away scott free with it. Hell. Armsy caught here, which I'm guessing was planned, and she just BSed her way out of it. He didn't realize she'd taken anything until she was long gone."

Grue's head snapped back in my direction while Regent found himself howling in laughter. "Oh. Oh that's too much. Pleaase tell me you saved that recording."

She turned her head towards him with a little grin. "Mayybe. What's it worth to you?"

His arm crossed to put a hand over his heart. "Holding back on such valuable material from a beloved teammate?"

She snorted. "And miss out on the opportunity for a trade? Of course not. I was thinking..."

Grue cleared his voice. "If we could focus on our business here?"

To his credit as a leader they did shut up. Though with some grumbling on Regent's part.

"Well. You've got brass ones, I'll give you that. We'll take a vote when we get back but you certainly have mine." He stepped forwards and offered his hand.

I smirked, though it was hidden. "Shouldn't you be making me an offer?"

He paused. "Ah. Right. Well, as a member of the team you'll get $2,000 a month just for being on retainer. You'll get an equal share of anything we acquire and occasionally we have gigs that pay a bonus on top just for doing them."

I gave gesture with my head. "Sounds good. With me having proven my worth with the PRT see if you can negotiate that up to $3,000 assuming the four of you will get matching raises." There were grins from both Lisa and Regent at this. Even bitch looked like she was paying mildly more attention to what was going on. Of course we'd rehearsed this before hand. It was a good way to build camaraderie out of the gate.

"Sounds good. I'll have Tattletale pitch it to the boss. You have a number you can be reached at?"

I took the offered hand in a shake and left behind my number on a piece of paper in his hand. "Not the smoothest pickup line I've ever heard but I make an exception for the tall and dark types."

Why, given the fraction of an increase in body temperature I observed I'd say I'd triggered a slightly blush. Point Taylor.

He took a step back and cleared his throat. "Sounds good. We'll be in touch."


	17. Chapter 17

AN: I haven't given much thought to Danny before this chapter so my mental simulation of him may be a bit off. I'm content with how it came out, however.

Note: I've made a choice this chapter that well exceeds my limited studies in Physics to work out. I someone skilled in such things wants to explain to me how it does or doesn't work I'd appreciate it but otherwise assume handwavium Shepard future tech.

Not providing a full description in text but the closest approximate for Shepard's armor in this chapter is the ME3 blood dragon armor. Just fully enclosed like articulated plate.

Also: Sorry not sorry.

...

A day later I had gotten a call that they had accepted me on their team. A few minutes after which Lisa informed me that even Bitch had begrudgingly voted in my favor. All as planned then. With her in particular I doubted things would have gone half as well had Lisa not explained to me before hand about her condition and given me some advice on how to handle it.

At the moment I was dealing with a problem a harder to handle though. One that I wasn't willing to outsource to Lisa.

"What do you mean you tested out of high school?!" I wanted to say my father was not an angry man. This would be a lie. My father had a rather large temper that he did his best to keep a handle on. He was never physically or mentally abusive to me but then he was rarely in physical or mentally in close enough proximity to do so had that been a concern at all.

It wasn't. My father was a good man. Broken, lost. Helpless to find the path forwards like so many people in the Bay. It was men like him that I was doing all of this for. Would his smile come back if he didn't have to constantly stress over the lack of jobs for the people under him? Would he stop prematurely aging if the ferry was back up and running? Or would it all turn to ashes in his mouth when with those things solved he had to face the fact that mom was still gone and his daughter had grown distant and independent of him during his years long fugue?

I hoped that wasn't the case. Should it prove to be so I would enlist both Lisa and Aimei to solve the issue for me. I couldn't devote all my powers and efforts to each individual person but my father was an exception to that. Would always be an exception to that.

"I mean." I said calmly. "That I tested out of high school. The bullying never really died down. My grades were slipping because of sabotaged homework and tests. Neither of us had the ability to do anything about it. So I did independent study and tested out in order to prove that my grades weren't a reflection on my actual academic abilities. On college applications I will be able to explain to them the bullying situation while pointing to my high marks on my test, as well as my SATs when I take them, to validate my claims."

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose obviously willing himself to calm down. "Taylor. If you'd come to me I would have helped you..."

I shook my head. "No. If they wouldn't do anything after the locker do you think they would do anything about the bullying that didn't involve hospital stays and police reports? I made the best choice that I could make for my future."

There was another sigh and a sad look of resignation in his eyes. "You've gotten pretty mature, haven't you? Still, I wish that thinking about such things isn't something you had to do."

I snorted lightly. "Dad. We live in a world with Endbringers, the S9...hell, even the Empire. There's a lot of things I wish none of us had to deal with."

He leaned against the door with a hollow look in his eyes. "Yeah. I guess I just wish I could have sheltered you from it a little longer. What about friends, though?"

"Dad. I didn't have any friends in Winslow. But I've made a few outside of it."

His eyes took on a bit more of an edge. "You mean like that girl that convinced you to do...that to your hair and get that piercing?"

I grinned. "Amongst other friends, yes. I'm happy dad. More than I've ever been since before...well, since before. Aimei is...special. She's my age and already graduated college."

A wince on his part. It was a low blow but it was a guaranteed critical hit in this topic of conversation. "I think she would have been more approving of your choices than I am. She had a wild streak in her especially back during her college years."

At the thought that triggered I had to fight down a blush. Point mom.

"Alright kiddo. If you're happy I guess I can't really argue. And you did test out of school. Have you given any thought about what you're going to do now? And when do I get to meet these friends of yours?"

I gave him a slight smile. "Well. For now I'm thinking about getting a job so I have something to put down as work experience on college applications and having money never hurts. Aimei says she can get me a job as her assistant doing spreadsheet work. I'd...probably be spending a lot of nights with her. I'm not exactly old enough to drive and it would make sense that way."

He frowned. "I don't like it...but I don't exactly have room to complain about you spending lots of time away from home work related reasons. I expect you to be here on the weekends, though."

I shot him a look. "Some weekends. I do have friends now."

He chuckled and held up his hands defensively. "Ok, ok kiddo. Still, at least one night a week you'll be spending here."

I mulled it over before nodding. "Alright, I can handle that."

"Alright. I need to get off to work. Will you be here tonight?"

I shook my head. "Probably not. Aimei wants to celebrate me graduating."

"Well. Have fun then. I'd give you a list of things not to do but...I'd say you've proven your maturity. Instead I'll just tell you to be responsible with whatever choices you make."

I gave him a hug. "Thanks dad. I'll see you when I see you."

And I'll fix this city for you. Even if you don't recognize me by the time I'm done.

...

I was on my way to Shepard's place when I got the call that the Undersiders were in need of my aid. Apparently Lung had return from his trip to recruit Bakuda and was quite irritated with their robbing of what I had found out was in reality his casino. I'd frowned when I'd heard the news. That was quite ballsy for the teenage gang. Suicidally so even.

Still, I'd told them to bunker down somewhere near their hideout and prepare for Oni Lee. Based on the profile Shepard and I had assembled on him he would send his lieutenant as a forward scout while he gathered his forces and went in himself.

"I'm pretty sure we can handle Oni Lee. There's a reason Lung's in charge and he's not. But that doesn't solve the dragon sized problem heading our way. What your advice there?"

I was slightly touched he was giving weight to my words. I guess I'd made the impression that I'd hoped to make the other night.

"Oh? That?" I replied in a musing tone while holding up my nails and examining them to get the nonchalance in my voice just right. "I'll handle Lung. I'll trust the rest of you to keep Oni Lee distracted."

I could practically taste his incredulity through the phone and it was delicious. "You're going to go after Lung by yourself? Are you crazy?"

Amusement now. "Crazy? Perhaps slightly... but it's not a factor in this. I possess more than enough power to do a good impression of Saint George here. The more tricky part will be not slaying the dragon."

"Well..." A slightly discussion broke out on the other side. From the tones I assumed Lisa was the other participant. "It seems that the boss says to let you handle Lung so that's what we're going to do. Good luck Skitter."

I switched to a more playful tone. "Silly Grue. Luck is a stat in games not something that exists in real life. But your concern is touching. You may just earn a place in my heart yet."

A beat on his size before he hung up. Point Taylor.

I didn't waste any time before dialing Shapard's number.

"Hey, Seven. We've got a problem. Seems Lung is back in town and is looking to settle accounts with the Undersiders..."

She sighed. "Not unexpected but the timing is unfortunate. I was hoping to have longer to put things into motion. More than that I would have appreciated our third partner on the line for directional support...still, looks like it's time to make a little lemonade I suppose. I'll bring your projects with me."

...

We met on a building overlooking where Lung and his cronies were gathering. I took a moment to observe the situation before turning my attention to appreciate mine, Shepard, and Amy's handiwork.

I had replaced Shepard's black bodysuit with a Spider Silk one to give her some basic ballistic protection, not that you could tell. While I had just chosen to wear hardplates over my vitals and a few other areas for stylistic purposes Shepard had Amy create her an entire suit of armor out of the Limpet teeth. The two had a ton of fun going over designs and working out the optimal protective properties.

The end result was that she looked like some kid of futuristic knight decked out in bone white plating with a small shield of the same material strapped to her left forearm. The weight would have prohibited anyone baseline from wearing it but for Shepard it was less cumbersome than a normal set of plate would be had she simply been human.

My project had been a little...different. A dark black cloak that covered my body like that of a Sith robe from the Star Wars movies. It was reinforced with ridded structures in places. The idea was to allow the spider silk to do it's job and dissipate the energy of incoming kinetic energy by giving it more room to stretch.

Before, I wouldn't have thought of wearing such a thing. I likely still wouldn't on an ordinary mission but knowing that I was walking into a firefight reprioritized what was acceptable armament for the situation. Shepard had told me that having a wide variety of tools and being able to choose the most applicable ones for a given task was one of the key strategies to waging war and it had struck a cord with my designing.

Down below it looked like Lung had gathered all of the troops that he had planned on bringing. Thankfully there was still no sign of Oni-Lee which would have complicated the situation.

Shepard gave me a nod and then leapt off of the roof. It wasn't like on TV. She didn't leave a crater in the ground though she may have made a few minor cracks. Roads were tough, who would have known?

She raised herself up from her three point crouch and stood before the assembled groups. Lung bellowed something and a cacophony of gunfire lit up the night. Everything from pistols to sub machinegun fire deflected almost harmlessly from her armor. I was thankful to see that there were no proper battle rifles in the gathering. They might have been able to slowly chip the armor and in numbers eventually worn through it.

Eventually the rate of fire died down as people had to reload their weapons and professional competition shooters these men were not. Within the brief lul Shepard gestured and witha grin I complied. A bibilical plauge of insects blotted out the sky as they poured from the surrounding buildings and swarmed over the gathering below.

To Lungs credit he was quick on the uptake. A fireball blasted a hole through the swarm perhaps killing a few tens of thousands of insects. It was a shame then that what was flowing over his assembled troops numbers in the tens of millions.

Trap set. Bait laid.

Lung leapt from the insect flooded street and clung to the side of the building that he had previously been standing beside.

Bait taken.

With a gesture the fight was decided. Lung was lifted from the side of the building and suspended in the air above the street. The insect swarm cleared away leaving behind all of his numbers bound by spider silk webbing.

Lung growled loudly and tried to escape but his attempts just caused him to spin helplessly in the air.

"It's a funny thing, Anti-gravity. It doesn't matter how strong you grow you'll never be able to escape from it without outside help. There's just no way or place to leverage your strength to give you direction. Even if you grow wings I can just redirect the momentum of the applied thrust to leave you at a net 0 velocity in any direction."

"This is how you fight me?!" He roared. "With tricks?"

She shook her head slightly. "Lung. This wasn't a fight. This was an execution. Fighting is what one does when there's no other option left. Had this failed for some reason I would have been happy to grant you a fight. As you can see, however, proper tactics removes the necessity to engage you at all. You and all your men could easily have been dead from millions of insect bites."

"I AM LUNG. NO SUCH PUNY TRICKS WOULD..."

"Yes." She said with a nod. "You are Lung. And given sufficient time and threat you can challenge even the might of an Endbringer. That's why anyone that wants to face you is foolish to give you such time. When someone is the indisputably strongest in a field it is the height of stupidity to challenge them in it. If we fought, I would lose. Thus, I choose not to fight at all. I respect your strength entirely too much for that."

He grumbled. "THEN YOU ARE A FOOL TO MAKE AN ENEMY OF ME!"

She made a tisking sound that reverbed through the street. "No more of that foolishness, Lung. You are the strongest. That's why the Protectorate chooses not to engage you if you don't make a nuisance of yourself. But strength alone does not allow one to successfully manage a gang the size of yours. Drop this facade and allow us to speak properly."

He was silent for a moment, leveling her with a deathly stare before responding. "You show more wisdom to see beyond what is displayed. Others simply see Lung, the Dragon. They do not think to understand beyond that." He snorted a gout of fire and Shepard minutely adjusted the field to account for the momentum generated. "They likely think I spend all of my time either in fights or lazing in a chair somewhere. I am Lung. I rule because I am the Strongest. But at that was all I would be but the strongest man, not the leader of a gang."

A nod from Shepard.

"What is it that you intend to gain from antagonizing me so? You will eventually tire while I will not. I will then be free to hunt you down and slay you in a contest of strength you cannot win."

"Oh. Of that I'm certain. Our options here are for me to either reach an accord with you or kill you." She shrugged. "I'd rather we part as allies but I have no qualms with killing my enemies."

"YOU WISH TO CONTROL LUNG?" Another roar of flame, another adjustment of the field. "The Endbringer could not. The Protectorate cannot. Even the Yangban could not!"

A shake of her head. "I have no desire to control you, Lung. I intend to take this city. I want you to continue ruling over your territory. The merchant territory as well, if you think you have the manpower to do as such. I only require that you stop practices that offend my sensibilities in order to do this."

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "You don't strike me as a fool. If you say you intend to take this city then you have the ability to do so. And you are offering me uncontested expanded territory in exchange for?"

She shrugged. "Cease certain drugs that are harmful to the wellbeing of the city. No murders. Avoid killing any parahumans at all without consulting me first as I may have a use for them. Stop forced prostitution. That's about the extent of it."

"What is your goal?"

"Oh. Not much. Rule the Underworld. Convert crime to the less morally objectionable sort. Funnel the resources to improve the value of the city which cyclically funnel more money into the crime network."

He nodded slightly. "You recognize the immortality of crime and seek to turn it to your advantage and profit."

She chuckled. "Oh. Power and resources are just tools. Their true worth is what you accomplish with them."

"And what is it that you intend to accomplish with this power?"

Nonchalant was the rule of the day. "Oh, not much. Tell me, with your understanding that I don't engage in fights I can't win or try to match against an enemies strength, how would you like to kill an Endbringer or three?"

There was silence for a brief moment before Lung roared. It took me a few moments longer to realize that it was one of humor.

...

I started writing this chapter intending for a large fight scene.

And at some point I realized that fighting is really an option people should only take when it's the only option available. With Taylor's powerset in particular the situations that should be a "Fight" are slim. Looking back over canon I feel she progressed from one villain that was a hard fight to her power to the next. I wager that if she, say, ambushed the entirety of the E88 she could incapacitate a great deal of them in the opening moments.

Compared to her canon fights: Lung (an extraordinarily tough brute with strong regeneration) while she still didn't have a great handle on her powers. Bakuda, who was a lulz tinker with prep time against her. The goddamned protectorate with the goddamned batma...erm Armsmaster with prep time against her. Mannequin who's basically a robot. Jack, who basically had precog against people with powers.

In truth, I'd say the people that she trivially disables vastly outweighs the people who basically trump her power and force her into more creative uses and actual brawls.

So...not sorry for the anti-climax here. There will probably be a lot of those in this story.


	18. Chapter 18

After she had let Lung down I'd proceeded to cut his men loose and they vacated the area with only Lung remaining behind. He and Shepard hashed out a few further detailed including the Undersiders were recently acquired assets and that she would take on whatever debt he felt was owed. He'd given her a figure that I assumed was reasonable for a casino's holdings and she'd agreed to pay it once she'd had time to acquire the resources from the Merchant's or Kaiser. Really this just served Lung's interests as it would not only pay him back for the money lost but also weaken his enemies by the same amount. So long as the Undersiders didn't muck about in his business going forwards he would conceder the honor / pride portion of the debt forgiven given the change in appeared management.

"I have strong control over my men." He stated matter of factly. "Be that as it may, word of this will eventually get out. The woman that would call herself Queen of the Bay will find herself with many enemies likely sooner rather than later."

Shepard chuckled in response. "A proposition then, from one ally to another in this. Should I remove the merchants from the playing board and grant you their territory, would you be inclined to lend the ABBs assistance in dealing with the Empire?"

He bellowed a rumble that was more a roar than a chuckle himself. "I need no excuse to crush the self proclaimed kings beneath my feet. But you could consider such an action an official declaration of alliance. After that I will know that your deeds can match your words and will begin the process of switching my businesses to no longer "offend your sensibilities.""

"Then we have an accord." She held out her hand which he took in a strong grip. I watched his eyes widen slightly as he did so. That's right Lung. So tiny, so apparently worthless, but limpet's produced something that would even given you pause.

"I will be watching your deeds." He said simply, before beginning to part. He paused momentarily and twisted his head towards the northwest. "It seems that our altercation has drawn attention. Unless you trust your strength to match the head of the local Protectorate I suggest you and your friend leave soon."

I started slightly at that as even now the sounds of Armsmaster's motorcycle was just entering my bugs range. Enhanced hearing? Well, if he wasn't going to make a big deal of their being two of us I wasn't about to show myself.

Shepard shrugged. "Eh. I can take him." Which was probably true. Armsmaster was an incredibly skilled fighter with all kinds of gadgets from what I understood. At the same time, though, Shepard was geared in armor that would give a low to midlevel brute pause in addition to being incredibly skilled herself. I'd probably give him the edge in round 2 once he actually had a plan in mind for her but going up against an unknown parahuman was always trouble according to my research.

Lung snorted some flames before leaving and I sub vocally tapped into Shepard's line. "As I recall, the first time you faced down Armsmaster you wound up tazed and handcuffed."

She chuckled into the line. "I know, and he didn't even buy me dinner first!"

Anthropologist damn it Shepard. "Point Shepard." I murmured.

"Damned straight. You might want to move closer to the edge of your range so he doesn't notice you. We got lucky with Lung not giving a damn."

I nodded and started to head to the edge of the building as a glow hit me from her direction. I felt nearly weightless as I hopped crossed the buildings and put a few blocks between the two of us before settling down to listen in. I bet Shepard had some justification she could spew for this but I'm give it more than even odds that she just wanted to toy with Armsmaster a bit.

I watched through my insects eyes as Armsmaster rolled to a stop in front of her. She'd taken up a position leaning against a wall while idly examine the fingers of her gauntlet.

"You going to fight me?" He asked.

I blinked. Who opened up dialogue with that?

She shrugged. "Wasn't the plan. We can go a few rounds if you want." She had, of course, used a device in the helmet to change the pitch and tone of her voice. It still sounded human. Going an inhuman route would grant a reason to run it through something to try and restore it to defaults. I wasn't sure if that worked like in the movies. Might do a search on it when I got back to my rig.

I watched Armsmaster frown. "I recieved a report about someone fighting Lung and his gang in the area. That was you?"

Another shrug and I was sure she'd be smirking under the helmet. "It wasn't so much a fight. I disabled all of his men and then we had a discussion like civilized individuals. We came to an understanding and he left."

Armsmasters jaw twitched. "And what understanding was that?"

"Oh, nothing major. I don't bother his interests in the city and he doesn't bother mine."

I watched the Heroes stance become more rigged as he tightened the grip he had on his halberd. "So you are a villain then."

She cocked her head slightly. "I suppose you'd call me that. We're all the heroes of our own stories though at the end of the day. So it really depends on one's point of view."

"In that case. On behalf of the protectorate, I'm arresting you."

I'm sure both of us were aware of the smile hidden behind her helmet. "On what charge? I don't think "being a villain" is inherently a crime."

He took a step forwards. "I'm sure we'll find something..."

She shrugged again. "Go ahead and look. I'm not going anywhere. I assure you that I have yet to commit any."

He paused. "There's still conspiracy to commit. Have any crimes planned?"

She tapped an armored finger against where he chin would be. "Hmmm. Nope. Lots of maybes but nothing intended yet. Maybe some incidental property damage when I go to gift-wrap the merchants for you."

Armsmaster was silent for a good while. I could guess that it was the result of the gears having to turn in a direction they never had before. Not that I could blame them. Shepard was patently absurd.

"What's your cape name?" He asked finally.

"Hm. I'm going by N7 at the moment. Haven't actually picked a name yet. I'm quite new to this whole caped business you see."

That caused him to come up short. "So you haven't actually committed any crimes. You currently have no plans to commit any crimes. You are new to being a cape and yet somehow managed to get -Lung- to come to an agreement with you without the situation devolving into a brawl. The next item on your agenda involves taking down the merchants. And you identify as a villain?"

"Yes."

He sighed and slowly, with I imagine a great deal of reluctance, put away his halberd. "Why?"

"Why choose to be a villain? Well. Being a Hero has all these rules you see. And I'm really not very fond of those. I'm really more of a do what I want kind of girl."

He sighed. "Miss. I can tell you're probably pretty young. Have you considered joining the Wards?"

"Nuh uh." She said like a petulant teen while holding up her hand. "That sounds like all kinds of rules."

His jaw tightened. "This is a very dangerous game you're playing. I must insist that you come down to the station so we can talk this through."

She shook her head. "Nope. I know the law on this. You can't take me anywhere against my will without some form of probable cause."

He grumbled something I didn't quite catch. "Fine. If you insist on being a child. Go. But when you inevitably slip up I'll be there to bring you in and I won't be so nice then."

She chuckled. "Well. I look forwards to the day in which I can prove to you your place." She began walking away before casting a glance over her shoulder. "Under me."

...Anthropologist damn it Shepard.

...

"Was that really necessary?" I asked once we were safetly back at her base of operations.

"Of course it wasn't. But it was fun." She shot a smirk in my direction.

Sigh. "Fine, fine. It was pretty funny. I mean did you see him?"

"I know, right? It's like he'd never met someone that just really wanted to grow up to be a villian. I mean what's up with that?"

"...I wouldn't quite put it that way. But you seem to have a knack for finding his out of context problems."

"Oh, Taylor." She said with a sultry smile while leaning in close to my face. "I have a knack for finding everyone's out of context..." She cut off as she had turn her face to the side to take my retalitory kiss to the cheek instead of the lips.

"No fair." She pouted as she took a step back.

I just grinned at her. "Yup. As long as I'm hard taboo territory I can escalate further than you can. Won't be scoring any more points on me the easy way."

She continued to pout as she walked into the kitchen to grab us a couple of tees out of the fridge. While she was doing that I was staring dumbfounded at the inside of the lab.

"Is...is this what I think it is?" My eyes roved across the lines and lines of computers.

"Yup. I've got stage one of your hug set up. 20 computers coverted to rig format. They're all older models but I figure as you're just using them to surf the web and for data storage you didn't need top of the line gear..."

She cut off as I launched myself into a sincere hug before turning back to face the setup.

"Muhahaha. The internet is mine!"

"Ah. Such lovely delusions of grandeur. I didn't even have to have mind sex with you."

Blush. Fuck. Point Shepard.

"Could you even do that?" I asked after thinking about it. "Not for the mind sex part! I mean to transfer information and stuff!" I added quickly.

She blinked. "Why would you think...oh, the biotics, right? Nah, it's not a biotic thing. Asari biology allows them to link nervous systems. Eezo is bullshit space magic from your understanding, despite is firm grounds in theoretical physics. Well I guess it's more hypothetical physics during this time period, but it's application is pretty set. You can use it to fuck with gravity in various ways. I'm afraid that doesn't quite translate to a biological linking of nervous systems. Had I studied Asari biology I could probably work with Panacea to simulate such an effect but I'm afraid that's outside my area of expertise."

I nodded. "Makes sense. Figured I'd ask, though. Sounds pretty useful."

She grinned at me. "And it has nothing to do with the mind sex part?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Would that make me any less taboo?"

She pouted. "You know there's a monitorium on that defense, right?"

I chuckled. "Sure. But by then I'll be desensitized to your brand of crazy...oh! What's that?" I asked, pointing towards something that looked like both a cobbled together and very high tech coffee pot.

"Ah. That's the beginning of my tech base. The stuff I was able to smuggle out of Halbeard's lab was what I needed to put together an omnigel fabricator. It's...basically a gel you can use to do quick on the fly 3D printing while skipping the printing part assuming you have the right programs or blueprints. I'll be able to manufacture the rest of our needed gear from that once I get done doing the programming and designing that needs to be done. Some stuff I'll be able to work out from scratch but admittedly there's quite a bit I can't replicate without some serious theory crafting first. The specific nanostructure of various nano materials, for example."

She rubbed my head at my look of disappointment. "Don't worry, getting you up and running on your nano-weave spider silk and carbon nanotube armor is on the priority list. It's just going to take me some time. Besides, what you already have is fantastic by this world's standards. Amy just built on your legwork."

I grinned. "Thanks." And I meant it. I still got warm fuzzy feelings every time someone complimented me. Damned low self confidence and history of abuse.

"Alright. Let me take these babies for a spin!"

...

I was active for less than 10 minutes before I got a PM from Dragon.


	19. Chapter 19

AN: Short Chapter, but it ended where it wanted to end. With this, Paragon Interrupt has become my longest story. Given that it took me something like 4 years to reach this point in the previous record holder and I've managed to hit just shy of 60,000 words on this one in just under 20 days...

Well. I don't actually know what that says.

...

I read the message.

And then I blinked.

And then I read the message again.

It was a long few moments before I looked over at Shepard where she was working on her omnigel. "So...uh, Shepard? Any idea why Dragon would be messaging me?"

Shepard paused, likely parsing that phrase and who dragon was for a moment. The difference between doing a bunch of research and having grown up in the world. "Hm. Dunno. Unless she noticed your search patterns." She shrugged. "Why don't you just ask?"

Sigh. "Ok...Huh. She's requesting a video chat."

"Ohh!" Shepard scrounged around a pile of CDs and thumb drives before tossing one of the drives over to me. "Just toss on your mask and run that program. Will scramble your image. It's advanced quantum cryptography so there shouldn't be anything on your planet capable of decoding it."

I nodded and did as instructed. The image it generated was a fuzzy black blur of my helmet while also refracting my eyes and making them glow a luminescent gold. "Neat."

"Isn't it?" She said with a smile.

I opened the video chat and after a few moments Dragon connected. In the background I had my bugs pulling up everything I could find on the world's premier tinker while also opening up a chat with Tattletale. I wouldn't be able to actually study up on all of it at the moment but I'll be able to find anything relevant very quickly.

"Good afternoon, Dragon." I said once her image had resolved. I would think it odd that she didn't bother with any form of masking her identity but she was a severe agoraphobia. I doubted strongly that she had anything resembling a civilian life to hide as her only interaction with the outside world was via the internet or through her remotely piloted mechs. What I was somewhat surprised about, however, was just how...average her face looked. Almost perfectly so. It was striking in it's own way, and I couldn't quite place my finger on why.

I directed my bugs in a quick search to put words to my sense. It was how symmetrical her face was, something uncommon in the vast majority of the population. Despite her average appearance the symmetry was strikingly attractive.

I filled that tidbit of information away as an idle amusement. It was pretty amazing to be able to find the answer to any random question that popped into my head but with a whim.

"And good afternoon to you as well, Shadow Broker. I hope I'm not catching you at a bad time?" Was she being polite or was the mic picking up Shepard in the background? I dismissed it as an issue after a moment of consideration."

"Not at all Dragon. Just getting some work done. What business does the world's most premier Tinker have with myself?" I said with a smile before remembering I was wearing a mask. Whatever program Shepard had me running didn't seem to mind though as a white Cheshire grin spread where my mouth would be before fading as I dropped the smile.

"You likely already suspect but I'll humor you." She said with a warm amusement devoid of sarcasm or condescension. "I have a number of monitoring programs that passively track certain activity. A short time ago your activity set off the initial flags. When you escalated a few minutes ago it was sufficient to alert me."

I frowned slightly, a gesture that was mirrored by generated lips on the screen. "I see. I haven't accessed any form of restricted materials..."

"No, no you haven't." She agreed with that same warmth. "It's rather the pattern of your internet usage that set off the flags. Were you aware that upon your apparence on the internet you were accessing an average of 4 pages every ten seconds? And that in the past five minutes, even now, you're averaging 80 pages per ten seconds?"

"Ah." I replied. "While an amusing tidbit, I fail to see why it would draw your attention."

"True. The speed of the pages themselves is nothing terribly impressive. It's the direction, however. Each individual search and link is driven in an intelligent pattern that no programming could account for. I can tell that even while you're chatting with me that this is ongoing as well as another conversation."

The widening of my eyes was displayed and I was starting to grow mildly irritated by Shepard's program. Didn't it know the value of a poker face? Dragon quickly cut in. "It would be an abuse of power to actually read your conversation without a warrant Shadow Broker. Don't worry on that front. Even with your searches I only have the patterns not access to the data itself."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Where are you going with this?"

"Can I assume that you've recently acquired an upgrade in hardware and that your limits are solely dependant on your access to hardware?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Now that would be telling, Dragon. I don't see why..."

"If I found you, others could as well." Dragon replied simply. "And I'd hate to see someone with less regards to the law in such matters actually find you rather than your online presence." Her voice was surprisingly honest, not threatening.

I froze for a second. "And if I cooperate in this conversation you're willing to prevent this from happening?"

She gave me a slight nod. "I'm willing to take what measures I can to scramble your patterns. A simple matter if I purchase your local ISP branch."

I sighed. It seemed that it was in my best interests to play along. "Well. As you've got me between a rock and a hard place, how could I refuse?"

I glanced at my conversation with Lisa where she was informing me that Dragon was safe to play with. She was a hero among Heroes and was always true to her word. There wasn't so much as a speck of dirt on her record. I wonder if being so detached from the world allowed for that? It would be more like playing a game in which you decided "My D&D character is lawful good" rather than struggling with the moment to moment developments that those of us out in the thick of things had to deal with.

"Very well. Yes. I recently acquired additional hardware. Yes, my only limit is hardware. Well, up to a theoretical limit, at any rate."

"You have some restriction, then? What is this theoretical limit? Not an important question, just idle curiosity."

I did some quick math on a notepad file. Call it 86 million cubic meters in a sphere around me. Drop it 50 million cubic meters after accounting for infrastructure. 1 cubic meter per rig for simplicity sake. Upgraded hardware to perhaps allow for 10? independent browsers per rig. 500 million simultaneous pages per 10 seconds. There were an estimated number of independent pages, not websites, of around 1 trillion.

I performed this simple research and math in under five seconds.

"Apologies for the delay." I said with some amusement. Better she over estimate me than under. "I hadn't calculated it myself as I likely won't ever reach it. Making a few assumptions, my upper limit would be sufficient to intake every page on the internet once per five and a half hours."

There was a lengthy pause on her end. Had I managed to shock -Dragon-?

"That is...quite impressive. I can see why you would view such a thing as a theoretical cap. I can't imagine acquiring the required hardware would be an easy task even for one with...your capabilities."

A quick check and...I internally snorted. Yeah. There were about 350 million computers on the internet last year. I'd say making up 1/8th of all computers connected to the internet would be a difficult feat to manage.

My amusement must have been more obvious than I thought as the Cheshire grin was once more displayed. "Yes. I'd say it's an insurmountable difficulty in the near future."

A message from Lisa was important enough to catch my human attention. I frowned. They wanted to rob a bank?

Once more the program displayed my emotion. "My apologies Dragon. Something has come up that demands my personal attention."

She gave me another warm smile. "Oh, it's no problem at all. I'll fulfill my end of the agreement soon. I must say, it's been quite an enlightening conversation. Should you wish to converse with someone of your...speed I'd be delighted to continue when you have time."

I returned her grin with one of my own while inwardly squealing. The best tinker in the world wanted to talk with me?! On a regular basis?! By the anthropologist this was amazing!

"Yes. I think I would like that."


	20. Chapter 20

Lisa asked me to come over to their base to discuss the potential robbery and if it was something that we wanted to do at all. That's how I found myself standing outside an old rundown two story factory. At the moment I was facing a large loading dock door that had seen better days. It was so far beyond warped and rusted that if you could get it open without tools or a brute I'd be surprised.

I shook my head to clear the musings before proceeding through the actual door. The bottom floor was just as out of sorts as the door and I figured that between the two they would dismiss a casual search for the Undersider's layer. I couldn't personally think of any situations in which such a casual search would be conducted but I suppose there was no harm in having a thin attempted at secrecy.

That, or they were afraid of spiders. I wonder if they were aware of the hundreds of spiders that crawled around the rafters and under the floor of this level? I think perhaps in another like I could have been quite content setting up a workshop down here. Hang out with Lisa up above while my spiders contented themselves with weaving in the background.

I chuckled slightly. Such an under utilization of my power. As though there was a difference to me between carrying on a conversation and weaving and carrying on a conversation while weaving and also in taking a significant portion of the useful information available online.

The door at the top of the stairs opened and Lisa stuck her head out and I was mildly surprised to find she wasn't currently in costume. "You coming up?"

I gave her a slight nod rather than a smile as I myself was fully costumed at the moment as I would be an any interactions with the Undersiders. "Just musing over other paths I could have potentially found myself on in life."

She was under no such restrictions herself and turned her vulpine smile down on me. "Oh? Yes, I think I could have gotten used to you working under me."

I blushed. With Shepard, perhaps, my costume would have protected against observation of this fact. Against Lisa there was no obfuscation strong enough and she was well aware that she'd scored a point. This round, anyways.

"I don't know." I mused as I slowly walked up the steps while my hand slipped into a small pack at my side. With a motion I tossed two items at her from within that some spiders in the pack had helpfully slipped to the top for me. She caught them and raised an eyebrow at the two lengths of spider silk cloth. "If you ever get tired of dancing around the issue feel free to slip those on. Who knows, maybe it will even be me that takes up the invitation."

Very slight flinch of the eyes. Damned straight.

"Ok, ok." She said with a smirk, raising her hands in defense. "Let's get inside before the boys wonder what's taking us so long."

I followed behind after her into the loft and I was struck by how... normal it was. There was a nice couch and a coffee table infront of it. A large TV and what looked to be a surround sounds system. A few different video game consoles and a giant pile of games and movies. There were a few pizza boxes scattered about and empty soda cans casually tossed to the side.

It looked exactly like I'd expect any teenage hangout I imagined would look like.

Lisa must have noticed my momentary disorientation because she shot a knowing grin in my direction. "Were you expecting something more sinister?"

I remembered my present company as well as the persona I played around the rest of them. My body language shifted into one of musing while I mulled over my reply. "Oh, I'm more partial to blacks, ominous lighting, and hives of both the most deadly and useful of my minions in clear sight. I suppose something more obfuscating better fits the masters of escape however. So you have my approval for the misdirection. Anyone stumbling any here without you in costume will assume a clubhouse rather that a gathering cesspit of evil."

Regent and Grue paused for a moment, one that I took to give them a glance over. Regent was as I expected a rather pretty boy. Given his...father's tendencies I'd imagine the stock of genes at least on his mother's side was of exceptional quality in those regards. Grue was much more attractive to me personally. A tall, muscular, dark skinned man likely just out of high school age. His facial features were strong but it was almost certainly the beefcake body that caught my attention.

I was subtle in my observations and the mask helped with that. Likely only Lisa would be aware at all of my roving eyes. Ah. There was the knowing smile.

"I like it." Regent said with a laugh. "Doesn't quite have the ring of "Hive of scum and villainy" but copy write infringing on such a work of art would be beneath masters such as ourselves."

Grue shook his head. "Yeah. Uh, thanks. We don't really see ourselves at the dark menacing types out of costume."

I turned towards him and tilted my head slightly. "But you pull it off so well in that costume of yours." I cupped my chin in my hand with thought before snapping my fingers. "Ah. You can just leave the mask on during."

Grue blinked and after a moment my insulation clicked in his mind and he blushed very slightly. This was certainly my day.

He cleared his throat. "Well. I figure since we're all going to be on the same team we should introduce ourselves properly. I'm Brian out of costume."

Regent took a few moments to cease his laughter before finally speaking. "Alec. Lisa, you find us the best partners in crime."

She gave me a nod. "Well, as Alec spoiled my introduction I'm Lisa. And Bitch is out at one of her shelters at the moment but she's Rachel. Though most people already know that regardless."

I nodded. "Her known identity is certainly the most infamous of you lot." I put a very slight application on the word known and was rewarded with a slight change in Alec's eyes and a raising of Lisa's brow. "That said, any secrets that I may or may not be aware of are safe with me. I just make it a point of being...well informed."

"Christ." Alec said with a grunt. "I can see why -you- wanted her Lisa."

"Psh. You know you have your own reasons for appreciating her."

"Hey! She's got a good sense of humor too!" He replied with an easy grin and when my brain caught up to me I paused for a second before mimicking Shepard's antics and running a hand down my side while stretching.

"Hm. I do try to be the full package. Beauty. Brains. And a wicked sense of humor, emphases on the wicked. I'm glad that I'm succeeding in the eyes of such illustrious and experienced villains."

"Speaking of illustrious and experienced." Brian interjected, likely to get us back on subject. "Wait. Not to be rude or anything, but you haven't introduced yourself."

"Ah, right. Apologies, but I'll be saving that for another day. It wouldn't do for my to lose the illusion of mystery just yet. Let us just say that there are reasons for my identity to remain as such even from allies."

Brian didn't seem particularly happy about that but with a glance at Lisa who gave him a nod he continued anyways. "Well. Alright. It's not how we normally do things but with someone who was able to deal with Lung single handedly I suppose I can make an exception. Speaking of which, how did you manage that?"

I shrugged slightly. "With a little more difficulty a expension of resources that I would have preferred. I could have killed him easily enough as well as everyone else in that allie, of course, but I decided such was both unnecessary and I didn't want to stain my hands with blood this early in the game and in really any situation that can be handled otherwise. Sacrificing one of the tools I acquired from Armsmaster's lab to insure both yours and Lung's continued survival was deemed a fair trade."

Brian and Alec were both giving me odd looks and I couldn't quite place if it was my casual dismissal of Lung as a threat or casual mention of killing. Brian actually looked slightly bothered while Alec had the look of someone who was reappraising me. Perhaps I had overplayed, in this instance.

"A fight is simply something you have when you've failed other options. Killing is something you do when you don't have the strength to secure your objectives another way. At any rate. We had a little chat and I informed him that I'd recently joined this team and I'd hate to see anything happen to it. He's agreed to let bygones by bygones if we'll refrain from bothering his businesses or territory in the future. I'd advise you take it. Poking dragon's isn't particularly good practice in my experience."

He gave me a slight nod. "I'll take it under advisement. We'd heard that it was someone in a different costume that lifted Lung off the ground. I'd thought maybe you had a partner that you hadn't mentioned."

I shook my head. "Simply a set of proper battle armor and a resource I no longer have access to at the moment. You don't think I infiltrated Halbeard's lab and came away empty handed do you?"

"Lisa informed us of that played out. Given the situation, I'm not actually sure how you managed that..." Ah. A breaking and entering specialist likely would be interested in how one went about smuggling high tech equipment out of a tinker's lab and through an interrogation.

"Well." I replied with a tilt of my head. "Woman have a lot of hiding places. I can demonstrate if you're that curious?"

That once more sent Alec into a fit of laughs while Brian stumbled his way through telling me that wouldn't be necessary while defensively holding his hands up.

Very much my day.

"Now that we're caught up to the present however, I believe we have a bank robbery to plan?"

"Right." He replied more confidently now that we were back on safe ground for him. "The boss is offering us 5K just to take the job and additionally he'll double anything that we manage to steal. The only requirement is that we do it between 10am and 2pm tomorrow afternoon."

"Any reason for that particular timeframe?"

"He didn't give one and we don't ask those kinds of questions."

"Ah. A distraction for something then. Is there anything otherwise special about that time?"

Lisa spoke up. "The Protectorate will be out of town at some event and the Wards will be in school. As far as the robbery itself goes that means the only possible powered opposition we'll be facing are the Wards."

"And New Wave." I supplied.

That brought Brian up short. "How do you figure?"

I'd raise an eyebrow at him if I could. "Some of the New Wave kids also attend Arcadia. New Waves public identities are known. Most of them can fly. Even if the older children and the adults will be at this same function..." I tossed a glance at Lisa who nodded. "It's possible that Glory Girl and Panacea will also show up. So worst case scenario, depending on if the Protectorate is has made plans for extracting them from school while they're out of town in case of emergencies, we'll be dealing with the entirety of the Arcadia wards, Glory girl, and Panacea."

Brian was a little taken back by this. "Seems a bit too risky, in that case. Rachel won't change her vote, of course. Alec?" He glanced at the boy who shrugged. "Eh. If we do it quick and clean we'll be fine."

"Lisa?" She tossed a glance in my direction. "It think I'll defer to Skitter in this case. She's obviously already thought it through a great deal."

In otherwords, "Do you want to make the distraction for Coil?" It only took me a few moments to think through. Someone like Coil had backup plans. Another team we weren't aware of, his mercs making a move, maybe even hiring Faultline's Crew. All not taking the job would do would be to drive a wedge here where I didn't need one. I'd make sure to have Shepard keep an eye on things. Maybe bring a van with a few rigs in it to within three blocks of the bank so I could do so myself.

I shrugged and grinned under my mask. "Eh. We can take them. Let's plan this thing."


	21. Chapter 21

AN: I'm actually curious from the few female readers that seem to be following this: How poorly am I handling the female characterizations?

Further, are your sensibilities offended at all? By having a pansexual / non-inherently monogamous Shepard and slowly converting two of the other female characters sexuality to Bi I'm crossing a lot of notes in the list of possible offenses.

Does it come across as male fantasy or am I doing a believable job of handling teenage females in these specific situations? (Rushed plot and coinciding lack of perceived time and on screen development aside)

Note: This is a question specifically for female readers.

...

My life had taken a pretty weird turn I reflected as I rode towards our destination. Less than two weeks ago I was an extraordinarily bullied and damaged fifteen year old with nothing else to cling on to but my desire to be a Hero. Now? Now I was on my way to rob a bank so I could be a real hero. Funny how that worked.

I'd done some research. Well, I'd been doing an exuberant amount of research. This particular set was more relevant to the matter at hand though: going under cover. When I cop went undercover they typically had to pass certain psych evaluations as well as maintain contact with a handler on the outside to insure they weren't becoming what they were infiltrating.

I pondered what it would have been like had I encountered Lisa before Shepard. She certainly had a charm and I think with her power she could likely have befriended me despite the hero / villain line. Beyond that she was intelligent enough to at least see some degree of the power I could bring to bare.

Of course, I would have wanted to bring the Undersiders in. Without the outside handler, without someone like Shepard to serve as an unflinching force in the face of the environment that she was in, I think I almost certainly would have become the mask. Excuse after excuse as I justified my actions. Where would it have stopped? Would it have stopped?

Would my first meeting with Dragon had been as antagonists rather as one of mutual respect? Well. Apparent mutual respect. It was respect on her side and a lot of internal squealing on mine.

Even then... was I already losing that "Happy young girl" that ate lunch with Shepard, Dean, and Dennis anyways? Or perhaps I had already lost it.

My internal reflections were brought up short as we pulled into the alee behind the bank. I opened the doors in the back of the van and stepped out before turning around to grab the large riot shield like slab of Limpet tooth that had been one of mine and Amy's projects. I'd decided on it over the cloak to allow for more mobility but was certain it would prove useful if Gallant or Kid Win showed up. Shepard had even designed the grips to be quick release in case I had to use it to juke Clockblocker.

The boys gave a quick pause at the sight of me strapping the shield to my arm.

"How strong is that thing anyways?" Brian asked.

I shrugged with my free arm. "Will stop small arms fire no problem. If we're up against the wards it should be sufficient to avoid the emotion effect from Gallant. And if Kid Win's lasers were sufficient to cut through it they would be lethal. I doubt he's permitted to use such."

He nodded. "So why the whole bone thing and not just get a proper riot shield in that case?"

I tilted my head slightly. This whole expression emotions thing in a full face mask was a skill I certainly didn't have yet. "One, it's free. Two, likely for the same reason a Tinker likes to use their own things. Pride, I suppose. Three, plastics melt against lasers."

He smiled lightly. "Ah, yeah. And a lot of tinkers use lasers. That's pretty good thinking."

"Hey, Skitter. You get it taken care of?" Lisa asked as she came around from the passenger side of the van.

"Yeah, it's handled." I said with a nod.

Her almost ever present grin widened slightly. "It was a good idea. I'm surprised I didn't think about it. Settingup a few cheap cameras near Arcadia so we know when and who."

"Don't see what the big deal is. Whoever they send we can handle." Bitch spoke up as she finished unloading her dogs.

"True." I said with a nod. "But I like to be prepared. We'll beat them if we have to but any fight you engage in is one you might take damage in. Being injured lowers your ability to be effective. It's why a lot of wild animals avoid humans despite being more deadly than we are. The scraggly amount of meat we have isn't worth the possibility of getting injured and being unable to hunt the next day."

I waved my free hand. "It's risk vs. reward. If we don't have to fight them we get our reward for free and there's no risk of us being injured for the next job."

She held my gaze for a moment before nodding very slightly. "Ok. Makes sense." She turned to look at Lisa. "Why can't you explain things simple like that?"

She shot me a look but her smile didn't phase. "Just not as good at is as our insect Queen here. Maybe it's both because you have animal themes."

I chuckled. "Mm. A bee that gets injured is useless to hive. A dog that gets injured slows down the pack. I guess there's similarities there."

Bitch growled. "We don't leave pack behind."

A nod. "Yup. Never leave a packmate behind. That's why it slows you down. So every packmate should do their best to make sure none of the rest get injured."

Another nod from her. Doing research into animal and pack behavior the previous night was certainly paying dividends with her. She wasn't stupid by any means. She just thought dog not human.

"You get your part handled?" I already knew the answer but it was best to share with the group.

"Yup. Wasn't had to pay off someone to open up the manhole covers and put up the caution tape around them. Will probably take the city a day or two to notice it's not actually part of any maintenance."

I grinned under my mask. "Good. I have a veritable biblical plague worth of insects ready to flood out on command. Just remember I'm handling the hostages and this will go smoothly."

I turned to where Lisa was at the door. "We good?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I've got the code. Trick is, you have to hold down these two buttons after entering it or it triggers a silent alarm to the police to send someone down to investigate."

She proceeded to open the door for us and we proceeded inside. Along the way Bitch started growing her dogs so they would be ready for transport duty. There were a few offices we had to poke in to gather up a few of the workers that were back here which my bugs found for us. The day manager has made an aggressive move in my direction but had changed his mind when the cloud of insects started to roll around me from out of my suit.

More animal research. This one was basically mimicking things like ducks aggressively raising or flapping their wings and instinctually triggered "Danger" in people's minds.

Our new hosts filled into the lobby in front of us and behind us bitches dogs, grown to the extent that they could still fit through the doorways ladened with money bags, crashed in behind us making sure everyone's attention was on us.

There was a current of panic and I even had a slight pang of guilt as someone towards the back screamed as I walked around to take up position in front of the doors.

"Alright everyone. As I'm sure you can all tell, this is a robbery. If everyone would be so kind to place themselves on the ground, I'd appreciate it." My tone was cheerful which hopefully would alleviate a touch of the stark terror.

"Now, I'm sure you're all intelligent people." Appeal to logic, yay! "As such, you know that we have no reason to hurt you and you're only being held here to prevent the heroes from finding out about our party early. Speaking of which, did you know that certain bugs can detect electricity? It's pretty awesome. There are a number of these bugs in the room so if you would kindly refrain from interacting with any electronic items such as cell phones I'd appreciate it." And I was indeed watching for this through a combination of electric and heat vision.

"Interesting statistic while I'm giving fun facts: did you know you have a 20% greater chance of being seriously injured when resisting a robbery? The best way to approch the situation is to ask yourself if whatever you're thinking about resisting is something you'd be willing to risk serious injury over."

Now to make it someone else's problem rather than theirs, while behind them the team was already loading up the money and Lisa was sorting through files. "Now, that satisfies your concerns over your personal health. What about your welfare in general you ask, Mr. Hypothetical gentleman? I can assure you that the bank is insured. Once the numbers are settled it's the insurance company we are currently taking money from."

I made a show of looking around the room at everyone that had complied and was on the ground watching me intently. "Now, to sum up: There's no reason for us to hurt you. We're also not stealing from you. You're only being held to prevent you from calling in the heroes before they find out. Once I'm notified that the heroes are on their way you will be free to go. We're not interested in a hostage situation." I paused. "Any questions?"

There was silence as the crowd on the floor just stared at my dumbfounded.

"Well. That was the most informative robbery speech I've ever heard." I heard a voice I recognized from in the crowd. I turned a few of my dragonflies to see who it was and had to suppress a slight curse when I noticed Amy mixed in with the crowd.

Perhaps unfortunately for her the rest of the crowd heard as well given the silence and attention was on her. Probably best to throw her a bone.

"Ah! Panacea! We have a celebrity present. Could you explain to the crowd why you're not doing hero stuff? Also. Mr. Security guard to my side reaching for his gun? I'll remind you that you're not a civilian. I have no moral qualms with inflicting a fair deal of harm to you should you continue your course of action. Also, I'm bullet proof." He promptly ceased going for his firearm.

She glared at me, likely for being put on the spot and was silent for a moment thinking it through. "My power doesn't let me fight, first of all. Second, someone's more than likely to get hurt if I do. The most heroic thing to do is make sure everyone gets out safely. If you're really planning on letting everyone go if a few minutes then the best thing I can do for everyone is make sure that happens."

There were some general murmurs at this and I smiled. Hanging out with me and Shepard and clearly beaten some logic into her head.

Well. That and she knew why I was doing this, but I doubt that would stop her if I was doing something like terrorizing the hostages.

"Wards are mobilizing." Tattletale called from the back and I gave her a nod.

"Well, you heard the lady. If anyone wants to snap a picture of me on their way out and upload it to my profile on their way out I'd appreciate it! And remember, I'm Skitter and this has been a bank robbery brought to you by Brockton Bay's own Undersiders! Be sure to tell your friends! Oh, and Panacea. If you could stop by over here for a second I'd appreciate it. My shoulder's been bothering me."

The entire crowd seemed to be stuck in a permanent state of stupor as it took them a few seconds to realize that no, the people starting to stand weren't being attacked and yes, they were free to go. The crowd filled out shortly and I was amused to note a few younger people actually taking pictures of me. I gave them a few villainous poses like arms crossed and head tilted menacingly as I waited for Amy to make it over.

"Bank robbery, really?" She asked low when she got over to me.

"Eh. Coil wanted it done. Probably for a distraction for something since the heroes are out of town. I tagged along to make sure no one got hurt."

She thought about that for a second. "Oh, right. Mom mentioned something about a fundraiser today."

I nodded. "Yeah. Why are you out of school?"

She frowned slightly. "Felt like grabbing something other than school lunch for a change and forgot my card at home. Just bad luck."

I grinned under my helmet hoping the amusement would carry through. "Or good luck. You being here helped calm them down and our discussion distracted them."

She rolled her eyes. "How'd you think to handle it that way?"

"Watching Shepard. Calls it "Refuge in audacity." Basically just break everyone's mental thought process so hard that they get knocked out of any existing patterns and then have to form a new one from scratch. Helps prevent preconceived notions and actions from cropping up without thought. Anyhow, reason I called you over was to ask you to keep your sister out of this. She's the only hero I can't deal with without seriously injuring her"

She raised an eyebrow. "How would you manage that?"

My voice was grim. "She still breaths, right?"

Amy winced. "You'd do that?"

I shrugged. "With you on hand? If it's the difference between that and getting turned to paste by her being trigger happy self preservation says yes."

She sighed. "Well. Fortunately it's not an issue today. She's grounded from heroing after her and Shepard's little event. Wouldn't have stopped her if I was a hostage in here but with me out there I can keep her under control with the reminder of her grounding."

"Good!" I said with humor. "Now you better run along before they think I really am taking you hostage out there."

She gave me a nod and then headed out while I walked back over to the group.

Grue paused in his packing to shoot me a look. "What did you talk to Panacea about?"

I shrugged. "Girl stuff."

"Girl stuff?" Yup. Incredulous.

"Yup. I mean, I look damned good, but..." I cupped my chest. "I think my breasts could stand to be a bit bigger don't you?"

He skipped a beat before shaking his head and going back to packing. "Not the time or place Skitter. Couldn't she have put you to sleep or something?"

"Oh. No. I was just getting a cosultation. I'd hate to have my chest trying to burst out of this costume while we're on the job..."

There was the flinch I was looking for.

"How are we looking?"

"This is the last of it. How's things on your end Tattletale?"

"Just wrapping up now. Which is good, because the white hats are here."


	22. Chapter 22

For any important event you should not only think of how to handle it but also the ramifications of how you handle it. If you're "weak" or just barely "strong" enough, where those terms are applied to the type of weakness or strength be it mental, social, or physical that's applicable to the situation, then your options may simply be reduced to winning or losing and thus limiting the potential outcomes.

When you had strength enough to not only win but also decide on how you win you open up a great deal of extra options and outcomes. Even then, losing is still an option you can take when it leads to the best path. One shouldn't see conflicts as fights but rather a contested deciding point on how your story and the stories of those that the event impacts will progress.

With great strength comes great responsibility indeed. With great awareness comes even more. Strength without awareness means that you'll "win" almost any fight that you come across with your overwhelming might. But is that kind of victory, or victory at all, really the best narrative that the paths can take forwards?

These were the questions that I pondered when Lisa informed us that it was the entirety of the Wards that had assembled sans Shadow Stalker and plus the recent addition of Browbeat to the roster.

Besting a few Wards and / or just slipping away was a narrative going forwards that I had deemed to possess few negative outcomes. Besting the entirety of the roster on the other hand, especially as I had just painted a rather friendly vibe as far as villains go to the local populous, told an entirely different narrative that I hadn't actually given thought to just yet.

I glanced at Lisa. We could likely work it out if I told her my concerns... but it wasn't something that I could do in front of the team. They wouldn't understand and there was the possibility of it getting back to Coil. I wanted him to see me as strong and whimsical, not wise. Let him think he can predict my actions and use my strength where appropriate rather than realize that I too am not only writing my narrative but also planning future passages of both myself and others.

Shepard would be another option and possible with sub vocalization. There just wasn't time, though. The Wards were here and we didn't have hostages. They couldn't be 100% sure of that so they weren't storming the building just yet but we had little time to decide on the course of action.

"All of them, Tattletale?" Grue growled. "I thought you predicted it would be only a few."

"Apparently I didn't have all the information." She said with mild irritation. Ah, yes. I suppose being wrong would be of particular irritation to someone with her power.

"Ah, well." I said while dropping the mask I'd worn to deal with the civilians and slipping back into the one I used with the Undersiders. "I did point out the worst case was all of the Wards plus the New Wave kids. Any sign of them?"

She shook her head. "No, no sign of New Wave. Only ones we have to deal with are the Wards out front there."

"See?" I said while allowing some mild amusement to slip into my voice. "Not the worst case then."

Grue wasn't amused. "So what's your plan for dealing with them?"

"Why don't we just go out there? We can handle them." Bitch shot out of she finished loading the last bag on her dogs.

I nodded. "That is certainly one option and I believe that we would win. Without injury or losing some of the money..." I gestured towards the bags. "That I'm not so sure of. No...I think that."

I paused as I began setting the plan into motion. A literal tide of insects began pouring from the open manholes around the area. They flooded into the air until the cast the streets surrounding the building into shadow.

"I'll handle this." I finished as it was complete.

Regent whistled and Bitch grunted. "Like you handled Lung?"

I nodded and began walking towards the door. "Yes. I do believe an encore is in order."

"Skitter! You can't handle them all. Lung was one guy and you were prepared! This is a bunch of different powers and you're not!" Grue attempted to be the voice of reason.

I paused my stride for a moment and cast a look back over my shoulder. "Oh, I'm quite prepared. I'm sure Kidwin will have measures in place for me next time but...if I simply wanted to crush them I'd bring the swarm down. Aegis might be able to fight his way through it but..." I shrugged. "I'm not thrilled at the prospect of being known for putting the entire Wards roster in the hospital."

And with that I trust open the doors and stepped outside causing every eye to immediately turn in my direction. Kid Win snapped off a shot which I blocked my shield.

Hm. More of a generic "ray" gun than a laser weapon. Certainly faster than a bullet and by that virtue enough so that had I not had a bug hiding on his gun I wouldn't have been able to aim block it.

I held up both my hands as well as I could while still holding my shield. "Parlay." I called to the assembled group.

The stared at me for a moment before g sharing some glances. "Uh..." Gallant finally spoke up. "Are you surrounding?"

"Maybe." I said touching a finger to my chin. "Guess you'll have to talk to me and find out. I'd say I invoke truce but that wouldn't mean much. Instead I'll just say that calling a parlay and then stabbing you in the back would mean's that reputation would get around."

Gallant seemed to study me for a moment before shrugging his shoulders. "Sure, ok."

"Excellent. Meet me half way." And then I confidently strolled from the front of the building to the mid way point between the bank and the heroes. Gallant did the same.

"Hm. Odd. I was expecting Aegis." I said with a nod in the Ward leader's direction.

"Not Aegis." Tattletale informed me over my ear piece. "Switched costumes with Clockblocker, I think. No, I'm sure."

"Field exercise. So. What are the terms of your surrender?"

"Just so you know." I replied. "I'm giving you a proud smile under this mask. We have no hostages you're aware you need to be concerned about and you're still not just rushing into a brawl. Oh! And I want autographs. Totally autographs!"

He shrugged slightly. "No point in getting banged up if you're just willing to come in. And I'm sure we'll all be willing to sign anything you want when we get you to your cell."

"I'm tempted to go along with that...depending on how many things you sign I could make more than I'm getting from the bank selling the extras on ebay..." I took in his blank look. "No? Oh well. While I applaud your pragmatism I'm afraid that a conflict is inevitable here." He tensed. "Oh! Not right this second. We'll end truce and we can start from there, of course."

He relaxed. Slightly. Better than nothing. "So... if you're not letting me take you in, what's the point of this?"

I tilted my head slightly. "Take me in? While I find the interest flattering I'll have to decline. I'm a hero, you're a villain. It would never work out. No, I wanted to discuss how the narrative of me beating all of you should go."

I'm pretty sure he blinked under that mask. "Uh. What?"

"You know, the narrative of this story. Well, I'm willing to discuss as long as you don't put it in any records and it goes no further than your team and Armsmaster."

"...Not something I think I can agree to. But why?"

"Oh, eyes and ears my friend, eyes and ears. I don't mind you heroes having certain opinions on my abilities beyond being the strongest Para human in the city. But beyond that..."

He paused. "You think there are spies in the PRT?"

It was my turn to blink. "Oh, you silly boy. An organization the size of even just the local branch? Of course there are spies in there. No real way to avoid it. It's the level of the spies that you have to be concerned about. That's why there's various levels of classification so you can try and make sure they only get access to what you want them to. Also, never putting any information you don't want someone to have on a computer. That's just poor security.

But I am saying that I can't be certain to what level you're compromised thus I don't want this information anywhere beyond the Wards and Armsmaster's head. Dig?"

"As long as it's nothing relevant to being able to fight you I can try."

I nodded. "Good enough. You seem like an stand up guy. Alright, so here's what we need to discuss: I'm going to win. This conversation is just a sounding board because I didn't have better options. What kind of victory will avoid hurting either my or the Wards reputations."

He shook his head slightly. "You can't beat all of us. I know you somehow handled Lung but this is different."

"I'm raising an eyebrow right now, just so you know. Really need to figure out how to express gestures in a full face mask." I held out a finger, slowly, and an exotic bug landed on it.

I began matter of factly. "See this little guy? Produces a potent neurotoxin. A few bites from him and his brother and you start suffering massive nerve damage. Panacea could fix it but no normal medicine could. Of course, if I get the dose wrong it will just kill you." I shrugged and the bug fly back up into the swarm. It did none of those things, of course. It was just a weird looking bug Shepard thought I'd like and so she got it for me. "Have any idea how many are in the swarm above I'm blotting out the sun with? Well, I do. And none of your costumes are completely sealed..."

He flinched half a step back.

"So yes. You are literally incapable of winning this fight should I decide that winning is what I want to do." I shrugged. "Even if I don't use extreme methods what answer do you have for me just burying you under the weight of the swarm above? A few bites and Vista loses her concentration. Shove a bunch into Kid Win's hover board and he crashes to the ground. Start biting the hell out of Clockblocker in Aegis costume over there and he freezes the costume to make it stop. You get the picture. You. Can't. Win."

He muttered a curse before grumbling. "Still have to try."

"Oh, of course you do. If you don't every villain will think they can just go out and rob places in broad daylight. It's the threat that you might bring your full might against them that makes the risk to reward ratio too skewed to do those kinds of things. I fear that there may be a similar problem produced by me just effortlessly crushing all of you. The villain minds might just see it as a testament to my strength but I'm not -that- good at predicting people to say exactly where that goes."

"...So what are you proposing?"

"Oh...Hm. I could make the appearance of a good fight and just barely scrape a win. That's one option. I'm of the opinion that fighting is only the option you take if you can't win any other way. It's silly to take unneeded injuries after all... so I was thinking a victory via a cheap trick would be the best answer. One that you couldn't possibly be expected to act on."

He looked uneasy. "And what trick would that be?"

"A simple hostage situation my Gallant man. See, Vista over there had a lovely assortment of insects ranging from extremely painful up to potentially deadly on the back of her costume. So we're just going to mosey on out of here and once we're a safe distance away I'll send them on their way." I'd legitimately considered just placing cute butterflies on her back but that would fall under the humiliation category. An assortment of wasps and bullet ants and a few black widows in menacing positions dangling from some of my fliers just behind her should sent the right message to the public.

He cursed. "You set this up!"

I tilted my head. "Well of course I did. But I did so before calling this truce. The entire point here was to explain to you exactly what was going on and why. If I simply announced it group mentality might take hold and you'd be inclined as a group to try and do something heroic which would have probably ended poorly for Vista and then shortly after the rest of you. Peer pressure and assumed roles are a bitch like that."

He sighed and thought about it for a few seconds before tossing a glance over his shoulder. "Vista. Let them go."

The rest of his team startled and he held up a hand. "She's got a bunch of bugs on Vista that she could severely injure or kill her with and none of us are in a position to do anything about it."

The assembled heroes turned their attention towards Vista and caught sight of the Widows dangling behind her. I thought there very identifiable imagery would give the appropriate warning sign.

"Fuck." Clockblocker.

"Eeep!" And a warping of space to distance the fliers and widows from Vista.

"Is it done?" I asked over my mike.

"Yeah. Space is back to normal out back." Tattletale replied and I could hear her grin in her voice.

"Good." I turned my attention back to Gallant. "Now. I can see all of you, so don't go trying anything while I'm on my way out. As a matter of fact, everyone should just remain still. The swarm above began dispersing so they wouldn't just go out of control once they fell out of my range.

I turned and began walking away at an unhurried pace. "Out of curiosity." I asked over my shoulder. "If you'd followed through with sneak attacking me with an emotion like you were thinking about, what would you have used?"

He seemed to consider if he was going to answer that for a moment before replying. "Uh. Hopelessness or despair, probably. Take the fight out of you."

I nodded to myself as I continued to walk. "Ah. It's best not to toy with the emotions of people you don't have a solid psych profile of. In my case..." I did a quick honest evaluation of my reaction to various extreme emotions. "Hopeless last stand and suicide by cop for that one."

A slight look of horror spread across his face as I turned my head back around and headed in to meet back up with the team.

Mission complete.


	23. Chapter 23

"What you did was reckless!" Brian complained as we were going over the mission recap. "What would you have done if they had called your bluff and taken you out right there?"

I tilted my head slightly. "I had a large portion of the swarm set to decent on Vista from all angles and was actively holding them back. If I was incapacitated they would have followed. Also, the sheer chaos from that many insects suddenly going free...well. All of you would have easily pulled out at that point. And then I would have just escaped from PRT holding. No big deal."

"You're too confident! Like, I get it. You're strong. You handled Lung, you managed to handle the Wards today. But talking like it's no big thing to do that or escape the PRT...you're going to get yourself captured or worse if you keep this up. Sooner rather than later."

"But none of them were big deals. I had an easy answer for Lung. None of the Wards have an easy answer for me. If someone like Arsmaster was there, sure, I couldn't have been blasé about it. I would have had to use more careful tactics and planning and even then I can't positively say that "Yeah, I can definitely succeed here." I know my limits. I know what I'm prepared for and what I'm not. I know my limits. I'm not going intentionally put myself into a situation I can't win. Effortlessly, preferably."

"She's strong." Bitch said simply, and with a nod. "If she says she can do things she can do it."

"Rachel has it. Skitter here knows what she's talking about. I'm sure she has a list in her head of people and situations she wouldn't willingly engage already."

"Yup..." I mused. "There's a few That my preferred tactic would be taking them out before they know that I'm there." In reality, that was pretty much everyone. Playing chess against someone that hadn't even put their pieces on the board yet was definitely the easiest way to win. Against other Villains it was my preferred way and Heroes I'd rather not engage with at all if I didn't have to.

There was silence for a moment before Rachel stood and gathered up the leashes of her dogs before heading out without a word.

"Fine." Brian said after a moment of silence. "But remember that you're on a team now. If you get yourself in over your head we're the ones that have to bail you out."

I grinned under my mask, amusement seeping through. "So if I get captured by the PRT or other Villians I should play damsel in distress before defaulting to kicking their asses?"

Despite himself he started to smile slightly before realizing what he was doing. He shook his and walked off to his room.

"Well. If no one else is going to say it..." Alec said while glancing at Lisa. "I for one would love to see you in a Princess Zelda dress. Or better yet, the Cortana look."

I turned my head towards him. "Isn't she the naked AI chick? Hmmm. Well, the body paint would have to be edible, of course..."

He chuckled before wandering off.

"Well. I should probably get going." I said loudly so it would carry in the building. "Things to do, candy to steal, puppy to kick. You know how it goes."

She gave me a nod. She'd be meeting me at Shep's place once she finished up talking to the boss.

...

Shepard was grinning like a mad woman when I had finished retelling the story of the bank. "You...you are terrifying. Not just your power, but you. You've been hanging around me, what? a week?, and all you had to build on was that time and watching me handle Lung. And you still managed to take that and twist it into victory without a fight."

She shook her head in disbelief. "Anthropologist Taylor. You would have made a fine N7...and an even better Specter. Need more life experience, of course, but you're practically a prodigy."

I shook my head, but in denial. "No, I think it goes back to what you've talked about before. Brain plasticity and such. I've got an awesome role model and I'm being exposed to concepts that most people don't get exposed to until, what, they're mid college ages at the earliest typically? I'm just eager, willing, and exposed to the right external inputs."

I knew it was coming before it was said. Shepard's smile sat into a smirk. "Eager, willing, and exposed huh? Well, how could I resist such a tempting thing?"

I hooked my thumbs into my pants and took a few steps towards her. "Mm. How could you?"

Aimei tossed her hands up in the air. "Ok. I give, I give!" She laughed.

Lisa, off to the side, chuckled. "You know, I'd tell you two to get a room...but then I couldn't watch." She winked at me.

I turned towards her while raising an eyebrow. "Oh, Lisa." I purred. "While just watch when you could join?"

She missed a beat before shaking her head and laying back on the couch.

Taylor Hebert, taking on all comers.

...

Probably best I didn't say that one out loud.

"So." Shepard asked, breaking us out of our jostling. "Any idea what Coil wanted the distraction for?"

"Oh, right." I agreed, starting up a search on that subject. "Hey Lisa, can you get me into the police reports?"

She rolled her eyes but gave me a vulpine grin anyways before wandering over to one of the real computers hooked to the network. While she was doing that I was going over news reports and forum posts for the day looking for any clues. Nothing in particular really stood out so far, though.

"Alright, you're in." Smugness incarnate.

I gave her a nod before turning some of my data streaming in that direction. Once I was committed only one thing stood out from the rest of the standard crimes. Something you might want all the heroes distracted for. Cross referance with some news articles on famous people and...

"Son of a bitch. He kidnapped the Mayor's niece."

Shepard paused. "How old is she?"

"Uh." Bug click. "12."

"Not political, I don't think. There's no big votes or anything going on and nothing to really put pressure on to get through. Can you dredge me up the highlights for the current political landscape?"

I gave her a quick nod while I tasked my bugs to tear through everything going on or coming up soon. I passed her the salient points and then grabbed a few seemingly random statistics she asked for. After about 5 minutes of this she was rubbing her temples but shaked her head. "No, I can guarantee it's not political. There's nothing here that applying his pressure to would help him with even obtusely."

She paused in the process of rubbing her head with a start of realization. "Get ahold of Amy and see if Dinah's been to the hospital any time recently!"

I immediately called Amy.

"Hey Amy! No time to chat. Do you have access to patient medical files?"

I could practically hear the frown. "Those are confidential. I can't..."

"This is important. Like, really, really important. Like." I glanced over at Shepard who had a bleak look on her face. "Like Shepard conciders it serious."

There was a lengthy pause at that and a sigh. "What do you need to know?"

"I need to know if Dinah Alcott has been in recently."

Another audible frown. "The mayor's niece? Why?" I could hear here making clicks on her end of the phone.

"Hm. Yeah. She's was in with headaches. They couldn't find anything wrong with her. But I'd guess..."

I glanced at Lisa who was still massaging her temples. "That she's a Thinker."

"Yeah. How'd you know..."

"Because she was kidnapped earlier today while we were robbing the bank."

Pause. "You were involved in a kid being kidnapped?" I imagine she'd have shrieked if she wasn't in the hospital.

"No. Coil kidnapped a kid and used us as a distraction. He would have just used another distraction otherwise. Recently Thinker no one knows about? Protectorate out of town? Too good an opportunity to pass up. I wouldn't be surprised if he was actually responsible for the fundraiser somehow."

I glanced at Lisa who just glared at me through her headache. Ok, no using Lisa to answer random whim questions.

"Taylor. This is big. Like really big. Like, I need to tell my parents big."

I paused and then slowly shook my head. "I...24 hours. Give me 24 hours to try to figure something out and if I can't then tell your parents."

Another pause on her end. "Ok. Ok. I don't like it, but I can give you 24 hours."

"Thanks Amy. You're the best. I'll take care of this. Somehow." I hung up.

Shepard had a very, very cold look in her eyes as she turned to Lisa. "What will he do to her?"

Lisa froze like a deer in headlights. I could tell how bad this was and I didn't have her powers. She was almost skiddish as she responded. "He'll...insure her cooperation. I think that..." She wincing got worse as she was obviously pushing her power well beyond it's uses today. "Probably lock her up and drug her. Abuse her Thinker power, whatever it is."

"SLAVERY" Shepard roared.

The room practically exploded in blue energy. Me, Lisa, and even the furniture was uprooted and bowled over as Aimei floated off the ground for a moment before falling to the ground breathing heavily. An absent part of me remembered that she wasn't a strong biotic and wondered if that was the equivalent to someone pulling a car off a loved one.

"I dealt with the Batarians. I witnessed entire colonies converted to slaves. I watched the Reapers twist people mentally and physically to use them as tools. I. Will. Not. Allow. This. Where Is HE?"

"Shepard!" I yelled as I climbed back to my feet. "Calm down! This isn't the way to handle this! You can't just fly off the handle..."

She just glared at me. Acting on some instinct, I slapped her. "You need to get a hold of yourself. You can't just charge into a Thinker with an unknown power and a bunch of mercenaries base!"

She shook her head and looked at me again, a clearer look this time than the sheer rage before. "You're...right. Yeah, you're right. Ok, we need to plan."

"We've got some time before she's...under control, probably. So he shouldn't have access to her powers. Or if he does. Well, a fresh Thinker her age probably can't use her power much without some kind of drugs anyways."

"Yeah. That's good news...um. How impressed is Coil with me?"

She gave me a slight grin, reading my intent "Yeah. Probably enough to agree to a face to face meeting if you required it to continue working for him. You've really set an impressive record so far."

"Alright. Set it up and make it happen. We'll deal with this tonight."

...

AN: Coil was supposed to have Dinah and then come after some other plot lines like the Merchants and maybe the Empire. And then Shepard had Reaper flashbacks so now it's happening now. _.


	24. Interlude: C

If he had to look back and pin point the moment that everything had really started to go right the he'd be inclined to say that it was when he had acquired his truly useful minion. Oh, he had certainly had others. Pawns to be moved on the board, pawns to be sacrificed so that he could take the more important objectives. But pawns were near useless when you didn't have the more effective pieces.

It was the acquisition of Tattletale as a resource that allowed his plans to truly begin to roll out. He'd already had his finger on the pulses of the other original Undersiders but they would never have worked as a team without a little of himself plugged directly in. A body without a brain and as cliché as it was Tattletale served as the brain of the body. Less the brain, maybe. More the motor cortex hooked to his network.

Yes. He liked that analogy better, he decided.

The synergy of their abilities had proven quite useful as he had known it would. Slowly increasing the gangs tensions here and there with little surgical strikes as well as the potential that they proved out today by successfully pulling off a major distraction.

She was a poisonous snake in the grass, of course. It was always the issue with those that you didn't have a simple and straight forwards carrot to hang over their head and a stick that they themselves speculated on but you never waved at them yourself. Regent wanted to hide from his family. That was easy enough to manage while at the same time the boy was suspicious enough to suspect that should he violate the arrangement then his father would quickly learn of his location.

There was no need to threaten him with it then and thus no resentment built. Not that it would have been a major concern with this particular case as borderline sociopaths were easy to deal with when you had their numbers.

Grue was another simple matter. Lend him the trivial amount of aid that was required for him to acquire custody over his sister and then string along the process over a prolonged period of time until the teen had grown accustomed to the work and likely even ingrained as a result of the crimes that he had committed up to that point. It was an effective gang tactic of recruitment and certainly worked fine outside of that limited scope. There was also the possibility that the sister would trigger as well, providing him with another resource.

Bitch, he mused, was even easier to handle than the both of them. So long as you treated her like the favorite dog the problem was already resolved. Was she fed and warm? Where her charges cared for? Then there were no loyalty issues.

By comparison to these, Tattletale was a snake in the grass. She had little in the way of carrot to offer. By contrast to Regent's family her's was a minor annoyance and not something to offer her a way out of. Food and shelter were simple enough for her to aquire on her own. Likely she would have eventually tipped off the PRT and been forced into recuritment but that was hardly something that could be used as an effective lever.

He frowned slightly. So it had to be the stick. She was the only member of the group that had a reasonable degree of intelligence applicable to scheming and a non-insignificant amount of resentment for the methods that he had been forced to use to recruit her. He had, of course, tried other ways. No fewer than 12 splits had been expended in attempting to find a way to willingly bring her in to the fold. Unfortunately, only the threat had worked.

Still. As well as her power worked and her passable amount of intelligence she was still a child in comparison to himself as far as experience went. Her attempts to circumvent him were clear to his eyes and easy to work around. Even this latest ploy of gathering a particularly powerful resource that had no loyalty, carrot or stick, to himself. But the girl was also too useful of a resource to simply discard without exploring the possibility of acquiring some leverage over her first.

His attempts at digging had turned up nothing. As far as the system was concerned up until the point that she broke into Armsmaster's lab this "Skitter" or "N7" didn't exist. He would applaud her skill at managing that at such a young age if it wasn't so infuriating for his purposes.

All he knew about the girl was what he had been able to gain from Tattletale. He was fairly sure that she was being honest about her assessments; she wouldn't lie about something that he could easily verify by breaking his communication silence to one of her teammates.

Thus he knew that Skitter was came across as an overconfident specialist who flaunted her sexuality in order to set others off of their games. She was apparently much more reserved about it than she had been when dealing with Armsmaster. After having listened to Lisa's explanation about how things happened at the bank as well as reading a few PHO posts on the subject it was easy to see that the girl was just switching between whatever masks she decided would be best for each job.

Another sociopath then, perhaps? He could only hope that it was the case and this could be resolved through simple means.

He did have some minor concerns that the girl was potentially a Cauldron agent who operating in the city for some reason given how well she seemed to be trained and how invisible she had been previous. They had agreed to leave him to his own devices here but that wasn't to say that something that they illusive and mysterious group considered more important than that agreement hadn't come up.

Should the girl prove an immediate threat to his life he would apologize after the fact if she proved to be one of theirs but short of that he would refrain from having her killed should she prove to be uncooperative until he had a chance to send them a polite request for clarification in this matter.

It was only a small chance but such was the power of the group that you didn't roll the dice even against small odds unless the alternative was that much worse. At this point there wasn't much he could do on the subject other than take precautions and see it through.

He sent the request for verification on the subject before he stood from his desk and walked into the adjoining room.

"Hello pet." He greeted with affection. Over time the imprinting as a voice of affection combined with the drugs should slowly condition her to possess at least a minor positive association regardless of the previous circumstances. A basic understanding of Pavlov's work was quite useful when dealing with people. Especially the ones that were young and without much in the way of life and mental developments.

They weren't there yet, however. The girl was shying away from him with her knees pulled to her chest and tears in her eyes as she practically hid in the corner of the room.

Yes. It would take time for her to acclimate.

He walked over to her and sat on the best as to be at a closer level to her position. "Pet. I know that you haven't much chance to settle in yet but something very important has come up. I promise that should you answer my question I'll give you something for the pain when you get back."

She mumbled something under her breath that he didn't quite catch before slowly nodding. Asking if he would do so? Likely. He would, of course, have to train her not to use her powers on such frivolous things first and once that was handled then train her not to use them without his permission first.

New pets were always such a pain to train.

"Alright pet. I have a meeting with Skitter shortly. I need to know if she'll harm my operations should I do so."

She shook her head slightly. "Who is Skitter? I don't know anyone called that."

"Would I picture help?" He asked gently to which she nodded.

"Alright." He pulled out his phone and with a few swiped of his fingers called up the image that had been taken of her when she had been in the PRT building shortly before she had broken into Armsmaster's lab.

"Here you are." He showed her the picture of the redheaded girl.

The girl studied if for a moment before muttering something again and then nodding. "4.6% chance she does something to harm your operations if you attend the meeting." She paused for a moment. "96.3% chance that she does if you do not."

He frowned slightly. Intentionally or through future coordination issues by not bringing her on board? Well. A curiosity, nothing more. 4.6% odds were certainly low enough to meet with her.

"Very good pet." He paid before placing it on her knee and rubbing it slightly. Comforting touches were useful in such acclimation. "I'll see that you get something for the pain when I get back."

And then he stood and walked out of the room before locking it behind him. Yes, just a few precautions to take.

...

Skitter and Tattletale were both waiting at the old house on the outskirts of town when he arrived, as was expected. His driver got out and walked around and opened the door to the back of the limo. Skitter climbed in and when Tattletale attempted to follow she was rebuked from doing so. While he might find it satisfying to attempt to steal her ally out from under her with her present he simply didn't have enough information to add unneeded complications. And he was nothing if not pragmatic.

Once the door was sealed her held up a hand to forestall any questions before he pressed a button on a device that he had brought with him. Nothing happened within range of human senses but it did provoke a flinch from the insect themed cape which he noted won to potentially be useful in the future. After a moment a number of bugs fell from her costume and he frowned slightly. He'd have to have someone go through and thoroughly sanitize the limo.

"Hardly a way to treat a guest." She mused.

"It's hardly courteous for a guest to come armed." He retorted. "But now that it has been dealt with we can begin. What was the purpose of you calling this meeting?"

"I'd have thought that to be obvious." She replied while leaning back against her seat. "I'm worth more than the rest of the team combined with the exception of perhaps Tattletale. You obviously agree or we wouldn't be having this meeting. Knowing the measure of the man that I'm working for and renegotiating my contract now that I've proven that my dealing with Lung wasn't a fluke shouldn't come as a suprise."

He nodded. "Very well. You have proven your value and I am inclined to grant your request for a larger retainer in order to keep you on with the team. However, I am also well connected. Should there be any other resources that you should with to aquire, ranging from Tinker Tech to more exotic insects, we may negotiate such things as an alternative."

She paused and seemed to consider this moment before shaking her head slightly. "I am fairly self sufficient and have made a few contacts that allow me to acquire the insects that I have my eye on. You did, in fact, kill a number of rather expensive ones that I was quite fond of. I'll expect to be reimbursed for that of course. As for Tinker Tech. Well, my needs for that are quite modest and I have been able to source what I need...locally. Should this change in the future I will relay the details to you through Tattletale."

"Very well. Was there anything else then?"

"Well." He could hear the slight smirk in her voice. "You are aware of my value and what I bring to the table. Apart from a paycheck, I'm not quite sure what you do. I have slightly larger aspirations for myself than forever being a two bit escape artist."

He nodded slightly. "My ambitions are higher than that, I assure you. And there is certainly a place for someone of your power and skills in what I am building. Do you have a coin?"

"You don't strike me as the type that would need bus fare." She said with cold amusement before nodding and withdrawing one.

"I control destiny." He replied matter of factly.

He split the timeline.

"Heads. Flip it."

"Tails. Flip it."

In the first timeline she flipped the coin high and leaned forwards intently to watch it.

In the second timeline she flipped the coin high and leaned intently to watch it.

In the first timeline, when the coin reached it's apex, she suddenly and with surprising quickness lunged from her seat and jabbed him with a tazer.

In the second timeline, when the coin reached it's apex, she suddenly and with surprising quickness lunged from her seat and jabbed him with a tazer.

He collapsed the timeline and collapsed on the floor of the limo before splitting the timeline again.

In the first he played possum for a few moments until he recovered sufficient strength to grunt out his command to his sniper team to take the shot.

In the second he played possum.

In the first no shot was fired. He dropped the timeline.

"Now." She said a she opened the door before picking him up and throwing him out it. He crashed into the ground and rolled once before stopping face up and looking into Tattletale's mask. "Let's talk about Dinah Alcott."

She placed a boot on his chest before standing menacingly over him as a swarm began to gather around them.

He split the timeline.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"What about her?"

The first. "Yeah, he has her."

"You see. I like to get a measure of a man I'm working with. I'd thought that I'd take some time working with you and see how it played out. Actually get a feel for your master plan and see if I had a place for you and it in this city that I'm building."

Not an agent after all, his mind whispered to him. Another player at the table and you didn't recognize her as such. It's still fine, though. Only a 4% chance of this messing with his plans. Either it was going to break in his favor or they'd reach an accord.

"But then you had to go and do something so morally repulsive that I had to break from that trend. I mean, if you were just going to kidnap her to force some reasonable political action." The girl shrugged. "I could understand. Not my forte but if it was important enough I could go along with it. But drugging her up to take advantage of her? Sorry, not happening. You're disgusting."

He briefly wondered where his driver was before realizing there was probably a rather threatening swarm keeping him in the vehicle. He turned his head just a bit to glance in that direction and was momentarily confused as he say someone standing in heavy armor of the likes reported that had faced off against lung.

Some of his confusion must have shown because the girl chuckled. "Ah. Right. Sorry to inform you that there are two of us."

He blinked under the mask and turned his attention back to Skitter before relization set in. Skitter wasn't the red headed girl. The red headed girl wouldn't be the one ruining his plans.

He had no idea who Skitter was under that mask.

"I'll release the girl if it's that much of an issue. I'll even increase your retainer to 30,000 a month for the offending you. We'll just call it a issue with transition between...new partners."

She tilted her head slightly in apparent thought before shaking it. "No. I can't work with someone like you. You did this once, and Tattletale told me how you got her on board. You have no moral center. If I wasn't watching over your shoulder constantly you'd be looking for a way to get rid of me at worst or just looking for ways to circumvent me or do other horrible shit at best. We're going to recover the girl and then turn you over to the PRT."

They wouldn't unmask him so. Yes. He could arrange to be freed. Faultline perhaps. Cauldron if worst came to worst. He'd owe them a great deal on top of what he already did but it was better than the alternative.

"How did you know about my power?" He knew that he had mislead Tattletale enough that she shouldn't have been able to figure it out.

The girl shrugged. "I didn't. Don't. Not really. I know it has some kind of precog and that it's limits are being binary and that you're either limited to one task at a time or by the complexity of the task."

He frowned slightly under the mask. Yes, he suppose that much would be possible to guess at or work out. Not to a satisfactory degree and he certainly wouldn't have opperated on that without his own power to secure it, but he could see how someone more reckless would.

"You can't give him to the PRT." Tattletale spoke up and he inwardly cursed. "He's already got plans to get himself out. He'll be back on the street and gunning for you very quickly."

"Who would he...Faultline?" Skitter asked.

Tattletale was watching me. "Yes. And others, though. So just paying them off wouldn't work."

"Who else do you have to free you?" It was the armored person this time, the red headed girl. "It looks like your options are to either tell us or die."

He noticed a very slight flinch from the insect cape. Not as hardened as she appeared then.

But the armored one definitely was everything Skitter pretended and more.

He weighed his life vs. the certainty of pissing off Cauldron.

He found living to be the lacking option.

"Someone powerful. Very, very powerful. He's terrified of them. Enough so that he'd die before telling us anything."

He wouldn't go so far as terrified but he certainly had a healthy respect for the group.

"See? I keep telling you there's a shadow conspiracy group!" The armored girl was amused. "There's always a shadow conspiracy group! Probably the same one with the symbols, non-human appearance capes, and power experimentation!"

I blinked once again under the mask. What? She was a conspiracy theorist? No, that didn't matter. If things kept going down this road it was going to get very, very bad for them. And possibly him as well.

He watched as Tattletale paled from reading his reactions. "What could...they know somehow, or somehow know when they might be exposed. Precog of some kind. Who are..."

"Not the time." Skitter growled. "We've got enough on our plates at the moment without having a super power conspiracy group that can give people powers leaping from the shadows or something at us. Ignore it."

"But."

"Tattletale!" The insect cape snapped. "Leave it!"

Smart girl. He could see how having the answer so close but being held out of reach was torturing the girl. At least he got some entertainment here.

"Ok...so we can't lock him up. Any options besides selling him?"

Tattletale shook her head. "No good ones. Accord sometimes sells people to the C.I.U, but that's basically slavery. Besides, I'm pretty sure they have something of a working relationship. Other option is to do the same thing he was going to do to Dinah, but you've already expressed your opinion on that."

"Wait." He said finally. "Allow me to make a counter offer. I can split a timeline two ways and choose the one I like best. I have no blind spots. For instance, if an Endbringer was attacking I could tell you if you should fight a holding action until Scion shows up or proceed as normal. Further, I'm a high ranking PRT official who can easily take the director position with a few moves. I don't know what your plans are but they would certainly be easier with someone in such a position."

Ah. Blissful silence. That should give them pause. Throwing away such a resource...even he would be hard pressed to do it. Of course, he'd just turn them into a pet which didn't seem to be an option to them.

The girl in the seemingly bone armor let out a roar and hit the side of his limo. There was a pulse of blue light and if flipped onto it's roof.

"What the hell She..N?"

"It's the fucking Quarians and Geth all over again and I don't have a fucking magic solution." She continued to rage, random areas around her exploding.

"She's trapped." Tattletale informed her. "He's too useful to be killed and too horrible to live. With a power like that he really could make a big difference with killing the Endbringers."

What?

"But she also knows we just don't have the resources to manage it. So she's agonizing over the decision."

"It's not just her decision." Skitter finally said, nodding decisively. "And if it's tearing her that much then I'll make it."

Tattletale was silent for a moment. "Just...give me a gun. I'll do it."

A shake of Skitter's head. "No. No. Aimei wouldn't ever hand off a responsibility. If I consign someone to death I'd have to be willing to pull the trigger myself..." She looked down at him.

"How good is his word?"

Tattletale seemed torn and he knew why. She wanted him to die, but she knew she couldn't lie to someone like these two. "...pretty good. He does what he says. He can be a manipulative, sneaky snake. Games inside games. Stringing people along. But directly lying? He's not the type. Besides...I'd be able to tell and he knows that."

Skitter nodded. "Then I want your word. Regardless of what happens, I want you out of this city. I don't want you to take -any- action to intentionally or unintentionally harm anyone that I consider mine. And I mean the fucking intent of that, no games. And I don't want your actions to effect this city. Further, if you do manage to get away with this shit, I don't want you to -ever- make a slave of anyone again. It's that or I shoot you myself. So in the future, when you decide to do something, I want you to think real hard "Is this something Skitter would put a bullet in my skull for." And when the PRT get you, you'll confess to all your crimes. After that, it's up to them to hold you."

He thought about it before nodding. "Yes. I can do that. I won't give up my civilian identity, though." It would be a pain to start over somewhere else but he'd done it here. Move to another city with both a Fortress Construction presence and a PRT branch. It was several years of work gone but he'd learned a lot of things that would make it easier and had a lot more power to call on initially. It was definitely a good trade for his life.

She sighed. "No. No. I can't require you to do that, can I? Fine. You'll have to tell them your power, though. Maybe they can find a use for you. Is he being honest?"

Tattletale once more visibly struggled with her answer before sighing. "Yeah. He considers it a fair trade to continue living after being beaten this bad. Doesn't think it will take him too long to pop back on his feet either."

"Best we can do." Skitter said decisively. "We're taking your holdings in the city. Consider turning them over to the PRT to be on the list of things Skitter would kill you over."

He nodded. Reasonable enough.

"Alright. Let's get this bastard down to the PRT. And N, calm the hell down. I picked the middle option. I guess dealing with sociopaths is easy when you have their number."


	25. Chapter 24

We'd literally left Coil bound and gagged in front of the PRT building before had I had bugs knocked on the door from almost three blocks away before we, pun intended, bugged out. I think the nicest touch to the situation was that I had left a note webbed to his chest which should further cement my image within the PRT as the most confusing villain in the city.

"One of my minions was taking an enthusiastic walk through the city when something got caught in her web. Thought it was something you might be interested in. By the way, tell Halbeard he can go back to using standard security regulations as this bug in his system has been located.

With best wishes; The Shadow Broker.

P.S.: Dinah Alcott will be returned home soon."

That should keep them on their toes I'd think.

At any rate, those things taken care of, myself and Lisa had headed towards his primary base in full costume while Shepard had headed back to her own. It would take her a little time to get everything packed up to move it all in to our new secret James Bond lair.

Truth be told, I was pretty giddy. We were currently accessing a secret entrance hidden in the 2nd lower level of a parking garage (because really, being on the lowest level was too obvious), and from there it was a dark walk through a bunch of maintenance tunnels before we finally arrived at a heavily reinforced door.

Lisa had made a show of thinking it over before effortlessly punching in the code. A few moments later the door had made that satisfying hiss as the seal broke and we were looking into a concrete and steel structure who knows how far under ground (well, I knew because bugs. We were about a thousand feet down). Also, about twenty armed men pointing what looked to be assault rifles at us.

Lisa just grinned at them in her usual manner.

"Greetings mercenaries and minions!" She said joyfully. "We have bested Coil and claimed his holdings for our own. What this means for you as that as we have access to all of his resources, your pay will be uninterrupted. Just consider this a change in management. Expect your orders once the boss here has time to get settled in."

Inside my mask I was raising an eyebrow but it was something to question once we were out of earshot of our new minions.

The minions in question just looked at us silently for a moment before one of them touched his earpiece. "You getting this?"

Silence.

"Alright boys. Looks like the lady here's telling the truth. Head back to your stations and await further orders from the new boss." He looked at us. "And confirmation of pay, of course."

They all then gave us crisp salutes before heading back to their positions around the base. This...I most certainly could get used to this.

From there, I just followed Lisa has she led us through various sections of the base, including a extremely large blast door that she'd frowned at momentarily, before we made our way into Coil's office.

It was a rather simple affair. A desk with a computer, a projector pointed at the back wall, a few secret passages I was aware of due to the bugs hanging out in them, a side door that led to where a small likely teen girl was being kept, and a costumed individual that I didn't recognize in a black costume, red mask, and a...top hat? Very Baron Samadhi in any case.

I cursed my lack of a portable rig and resolved to ask Shepard for a solution to this. Fortunately, Lisa was on the ball with the who's who in capeing.

"Trickster." She said, though she wasn't smiling. "I wasn't aware that Coil had the Travelers on his payroll."

"We're something of a recent of an, ah, recent acquisition." HE stated. "So I suppose it's true that he's currently being held by the PRT due to you?"

I tensed slightly and my more potent insects were stirring beneath my costume.

He raised his hands defensively noticing this. "I have no desire to go head to head with the girl that took on Lung and the entire local Wards branch. My team had an...agreement with Coil. I was wondering if you'd be interested in upholding the contract?"

Lisa actually frowned slightly. "This has something to do with the large security doors a few rooms back doesn't it?"

He nodded. "Yes. Noelle, one of our members, is a...monstrous cape. Coil had agreed to help us find a way to fix her in payment for our services."

I was frowning at this point. "She must be incredibly dangerous if she's locked away like that."

Another nod. "She's incredibly strong and has the ability to create...evil clones en mass of anyone she eats. Which if you touch her is anyone."

That was scary. Very, very scary.

Lisa just looked at me and a shrugged slightly. "Well, she's already here and I imagine getting her out of the city would be a hassle even if I was inclined to shift this burden on to someone else. At least we're aware of what we are dealing with. So yes, we'll agree to try and find a way to take care of it. Fucking shadow conspiracy group."

I was pretty sure there was a minor flinch from Trickster that. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, not you." I assured him. "One of my team mates is fairly convinced all non-human appearance capes are the result of a shadowy conspiracy group that is experimenting with powers." I walked over to the desk and gestured for Lisa to get me logged in before drumming my fingers on the desk. "I'm inclined to agree. Coil was apparently involved with them. He's quite confident that he can get them to free them from PRT holdings. Which is why I required him to vacate the city regardless of how that plays out."

"Ah. Well, I wouldn't know anything about that."

Lisa finished logging me on and I took the seat in front of the computer. She was currently leveling him with a very hungry group.

"Oh. I think you know something. You don't know much, but you do have a piece to this puzzle..."

I glanced at her and at him while I was loading up Coil's emails. "If we're going to be helping you with your problem we should probably have whatever details are relevant."

He sighed. "Look. She's right. I don't know anything about this group you mentioned, but...we didn't trigger. We found a box with some vials in them and a booklet with basically rough guesses on what each one did. I assume that's connected, but it's all I know."

I thought that through before nodding. "Alright. Thank you."

He seemed minorly shocked at this. "Alright? Sorry, it's just, I imagine that most people would be stunned at the least by power in a bottle."

To be fair, I was inwardly flipping out a little bit. But I had an image to set here so I shrugged lightly. "We already suspected someone was experimenting with powers. Granting powers through some formula or another fits. It also explained the non-human appearance capes as it indicates either the formulas aren't perfected or can't be perfected."

"There's something more. You don't think it's very important, but..." Lisa cut in with that fox like grin of hers.

He shrugged slightly himself. "When we drank the potions there weren't enough for all of us. So Noelle and one of our other members split one. She...turned into what she is and he got a pretty useless power. He's basically himself but the ideal version of himself to whoever's looking at him."

"Huh." I rolled it around in my head. "Now my knowledge of chemistry is quite limited, but I think that means the "potions" are non-homogenous. Different parts are in it but not mixed together. It's likely that they're supposed to balance each other out, or something. So your other member got a power that's stable and weak while Noelle got one that's out of control."

He shrugged again. "Makes sense, but doesn't really matter unless you run into more of them or something and you'd know not to drink part of it."

"Yeah. It's mostly amusing conjecture. Alright Trickster, I'll see what I can do. Maybe I can have Panacea see if she can figure something out. If her power is causing the issue shutting it off might take care of it."

Trickster shook his head. "No. It was the first thing we thought of when we got here. Coil said he did something to test out the thought and that it would end very poorly for everyone involved."

Another frown on my part. A timeline split involving kidnapping Panacea and having her use it? What was the morality of something like that? Another few seconds of consideration and a mental shrug later. I'd certainly use the power to test things out. It was basically a form of simulation. If you were the only one aware that it happened you weren't actually damaging others. I could think of more disturbing uses but they were basically 100% accurate fantasies so it was all dependant on your own head space. But dangerous experiments, kidnapping people in a simulation that never really existed to try things? Yeah, I'd do that.

"Noted. I can't ask him but I imagine her absorption beat out Panaceas abilities. I'll take that under consideration when moving forwards and see if we can come up with a solution that doesn't involve physical contact. If you could inform Noelle that it's on my list of priorities..."

"She already knows." Lisa cut in. "Trickster turned on the intercom before we got here. Isn't that right Noelle?"

There was silence for a moment before the voice cut in. Stained, carrying a burden, but a pretty voice none the less. "Yes. I've been listening. Thank you for agreeing to help us."

I grinned slightly. "It's no problem. It's the right thing to do. Now Trickster, if you'll excuse me, I've got other things on my agenda at the moment."

He nodded and walked out of the room while Lisa flicked off the intercom when I made a look around for the switch.\

"Interesting tidbit by the way, Lisa. All Coil's emails for the passed day, in and out, have been deleted."

She looked puzzled for a second. "No one's recorded as having come into or out of the base since Coil left. There were no failures to access the compute as it's rigged to memory wipe if someone does." Pause. "No, not just memory wipe. Thermite charge on the hard drive."

"Makes sense. Shepard says you can't really delete data, just make it harder to get. I imagine melting the hard drive is about as thorough as you can get. So either a stranger or that group, again. Funny how much they keep coming up when dealing with Coil's shit. Ah well. Something to worry about later. Let's see about Dinah."

I stood from the desk and walked over to the door before opening it up. Another sparse room, more like a cell really. A bed, a toilet, a sink, a book shelf with a few books on it, Dinah Alcott, and a middle aged Mediterranean looking woman in black with a rather stylish looking fedora sitting on the bed.

I sighed. "I'm just going to keep meeting random new capes during this process, aren't I? Let me guess, another recent acquisition of Coil's?" She made no move to respond and was actually giving a smile to Dinah. "No, no. To simple. Let's see. N keeps talking about a shadow conspiracy. And then Coil expects one to break him out. And then the travelers got there powers from them accidentally. I'm seeing a pattern of escalation, here. Let me guess, you're actually a member of it."

She nodded slightly, but still didn't speak.

I pinched the bridge of my nose as well as I could through my mask. "You know, I wasn't serious. I was hoping I my bullshit meter was wrong and you were just the Nanny or something. Ok, alright. Go ahead and proceed with your threats or whatever."

She shook her head. "No threats. They'd work on her, applied correctly" She glanced at Lisa. "But not on you. And certainly not on your mentor. Simply a trade."

"And let me guess, if we reject it and evict you then we'll be watching our backs for your Shadow buddies from now on?"

"You can't win." Dinah spoke up with certainty. "If you fight her, you lose 100% of the time. If everyone in this base fights her, they lose 100% of the time."

I blinked. Well. Dinah was a very powerful precog if what I thought that said about her power was true. Given the look of growing unease on Lisa's face I'd say that's true.

"Dinah is correct." The woman stated. "That is my power. I win." No over confidence, no pride. Just matter of fact. The woman's power was that she won. That was...I didn't even have words for that. Especially seeing as everyone in the building included Noelle who was apparently terrifying. How far did that extend, though? Just fights? Or everything? was she "Winning" this conversation? Was she writing the narrative of this story perfectly to achieve the results she wanted? Everything that required tons of thought and planning on my part to just hit the ballpark and she just knew how to do it?

She smiled lightly. "Yes. I win. It really is that simple, as is the deal I'm offering which you'll take. You'll speak to no one about our group or anything about it. In return we'll fix Noelle. "

"23.776% chance you figure something out without her help." Dinah spoke up again." "...87.598% chance that Noelle inflicts parahuman causalities, civilian casualties, and property damage near that of an endbringer within two months if you don't take the deal."

Both me and Lisa cursed lightly and the woman continued to smile. "You prepared her to have those figures ready when we came in." Same smile still there. "No, of course you did." Sigh. "Fine, we'll take the deal."

"Yes. Speak of no one of this, of course. We'll have Noelle's power removed and her treated within the day. Her memories of this event will, of course, be removed."

She stood and paused for a moment. I wondered why and then realized that I had a question. "If you can just wipe memories, why didn't you just do that here?"

Her smile widened slightly. "Because we have no need to do so. And you may be very useful in the future. Best we don't have to explain things you've already gone through he effort of figuring out. Door."

Door? My question was answered when a door shaped glowing portal appeared beside her.

She glanced at us one more time before walking through it. "We'll be in touch in the future."

And then both she and the portal were gone.

"Fuck." Lisa, echoing my mental sentiments.

I shook my head. "Nothing to do about it now. Alright Dinah, let's get you home."

...

AN: Alright! Cauldron unfortunately gets involved because they couldn't not with this particular series of events. On the other hand, I think they managed to do so without derailing the plot at all...which from what I understand tends to be a rarity.


	26. Chapter 25

It was an hour later that I found myself standing inside the gates of the mayors house with Dinah in tow. I didn't particularly expect any trouble but I did have the Travelers and Tattletale in a position that overlooked the area. This was another one of those situations in which having cards that the other side wasn't aware of basically guaranteed victory. Should Heroes try to start a fight here Trickster could easily swap them out with prearranged materials and then his group could subdue them one by one.

I'd rather not have to do that for a few different reasons, ranging from not wanting to fight heroes more than I had to at the top and not wanting to expose a card I held like the Travelers earlier than I needed to.

It was the mayor, his wife, Triumph, Armsmaster, and Miss Militia that waited for us in front of the house.

"Good evening." I said with a mute degree of cheer as we approached.

"Good ev..." Miss Militia began before Armsmaster cut her off.

"Did you kidnap Dinah Alcott?" Smooth Armsy, smooth.

"No." I stated matter of factly at the same time Dinah's grip on my hand tightened. "And your abrupt manner is terrifying her, by the way."

His jaw tightened. "But you did serve as a distraction for her kidnapping."

A slight shrug of my shoulders. "I wasn't aware of it at the time." I paused for a beat. "And I believe that I've clearly demonstrated how I view being used in such a fashion."

"Yes. I believe you did." Miss Militia took back over while casting a glance at Armsmaster. "By somehow taking out the most illusive Villain in the city. Were you planning this from before robbing the bank?"

I shrugged lightly. "Ahh. Now, that would be telling I think. Still, let's just say that I've successfully spun the narrative I was aiming for. If on a bit of an accelerated timeframe due to passages I wasn't aware of coming to my attention." I smiled beneath my mask while looking down at Dinah for a moment.

Miss Militia's eyes crinkled in a smile. "Yes. I find that regardless of how much one plans we often have to make changes to our...narrative to account for things that we missed or were hidden. By the way, are you sure that Skitter should be your chosen handle? Weaver sounds much more appropriate."

I smirked and tapped my chin with my free hand. "It does have a nice ring to it. Perhaps if I was a Hero. It just doesn't have that Villainous edge that's needed in my line of work I'm afraid."

"Yes. Well. Release the girl. We can talk about a potential probationary Wards membership after we take you in."

I paused. It wasn't unexpected but this level of sheer...I didn't even have the right word for it. It was like...at a chess table, you started the game. Aimei would move her pawn and checkmate you with the first move and it would work somehow. Halbeard tried the same thing and everyone just looked at him like he was retarded. I wonder what the difference was?

"89.763% chance you lose if you start a fight here." Dinah answered for me, which caused him to pause.

"Ah, yes. Dinah's probably the..."Mentally refilling after the earlier visitor. "Second most powerful Thinker I've encountered or am even aware of. Should I find out that you're pressuring her to join the Wards or user her ability for you. Well, Coil should prove no one is safe from me." I paused and waved over their shoulders at the mayor with my voice becoming more cheerful. "That goes for you too mayor!"

"I'd recommend you don't allow that information to get out. Should the Villain community learn of it I may have to get especially...creative it setting examples with them and I don't think any of us want that." I continued back to the heroes with the same degree of cheer.

"I dont' know what you've heard, but we don't tend to make it a habit of putting pressure on non-criminals to join the Wards. I can assure you that any decisions that Dinah makes will be her own."

"Here here." The mayor spoke up as he finally walked up. "While I cannot condone your robbing of the primary banking institute in the city, I offer my most sincere gratitude in both returning a member of my family to me and bringing her captor to justice."

He held out his hand, which caused me to pause for a moment in shock. I was a villain in all of their eyes, if perhaps a particularly moral one. Still, I took his hand a firmly shacked it before placing Dinah's hand in his own. "Be sure to take good care of her in the future. She's a sweet kid."

He nodded. "I'd be tempted to do something in your honor, villain or not, but something tells me you wouldn't enjoy the publicity much."

"Nope." I said with a shake of my head. "I'd prefer villains both in city and out be unaware of the tale that I'm weaving here. Publicity would just make my efforts more difficult."

Another nod from the man before he stepped back while leading Dinah along. She tossed out her free arm and gave me a hug while whispering in my ear. "Check on your other friend when you're done here." And then she allowed herself to be pulled out of the potential line of fire.

"Are you sure we can't convince you to join the Wards? Given both the circumstances of your only crime on record and your success in seeing it through, I'm sure we could get the crime dismissed. You could come on board as a full member." Miss Militia picked the conversation back up.

I shook my head slightly. "I'm afraid that I can't do that. Members of the Wards and Protectorate are mostly good people doing good work. But at the end of the day, your publishers have set rules and regulations on the narrative that you weave and the words that you use. I'm afraid that I wouldn't much enjoy my status as an active parahuman bound by such regulations."

"I thought you might say as much." There was both a sad and wistful tone to her voice which touched me. "A shame. With Shadow Stalker back in a detention center we're short on man power." This brought me up short and halted the response that I'd planned. It the way her eyes took me in were any indication she had noticed this. I think I was, as they say, made.

"Well, that is a shame." I said after a moment, making sure my voice was clear. "Perhaps you can put in a request to New York? I believe that I recall hearing something about a crossbow wielding cape up there if you're hoping to keep the theme filled."

"You are certainly well informed. This Shadow Broker the note was signed by, perhaps?" Armsmaster once more bluntly forcing his way into the conversation.

I gave him the best annoyed look I could manage in my full face mask. "You could say that. The Shadow Broker is certainly well informed, and personally I find having information on heroes that may be called in when the Protectorate finally takes my strength seriously to be an intelligent survival move."

He just grunted.

"Now, if you'll excuse me." I stated. "I'm afraid I have candy to steal from babies or something equally vile to get up to."

And with that I turned and began walking away. I watched through my bugs eyes as Armsmaster began to shift his stance and readied myself to give the signal...but Triumph's hand rested on his arm. "Boss, if you think someone like that is showing her back to you without at least two contingencies you're nuts."

He reluctantly ceased his actions and I smiled to myself.

Time to see what was going on with Shepard.

...

I let myself into the building as had become the norm since the second day I'd been here. The warm glow of a few of my rigs greeted me as did a soft and somber melody that drowned out the hum of the machines to my human senses. I was still adapting to the sheer degree and range off all of my extra sensory perceptions but I was stuck by the beauty in the dichotomy between my simple human senses and the sheer scope of all of my insectoid ones added to the mix.

After a few moments of appreciating the melody and vibes of the room with all of my senses I turned my human ones on to where Shepard was currently laying on the couch and observed how she was simply watching the fan spin on it merry way in circles. A sighed lightly, partially to let her know I was there, and as I drew close I noticed the empty bottle that was laying beside the couch.

I frowned slightly. "Have you been drinking?"

She giggled. She actually giggled. "Yeeah. And it's great. I haven't gotten to drink in sooo long. And I forgot how weird it feels as a teenager."

A more real sigh this time. "Aimei, I thought we'd established that drinking is pretty terrible for you."

"Psssh." She replied. "You think Humans would include some things in their standard mods to get rid of that? We've been drinking since 0 BCE. Of cooourse we'd force our bodies to adapt to it."

I blinked. "Huh. Guess there'd be a large market for it." A shook my head. "That doesn't change the fact that it's not exactly the most productive use of your time."

"Productive. Productive. Pssh. Tay Tay, we're teenagers. We have to have fun too. I mean, we're kicking ass and stuff, but we need ouur time."

I sat on the arm rest of the couch where her head was resting. "I guess the Coil situation got to you pretty bad."

"Yeeah." She said with a nod. "Yeah. Reapers. Batarians. Quarians and Geth, too many bad memories for one situation to bring up. I mean, I fixed the Quarians and Geth but so many died before I could do it."

"You can't fix everything perfectly Aimei. You'll drive yourself crazy."

"I know. I know. When did you get sooo wise?"

I chuckled. "You've been rubbing off on me. You're pretty good at the wise thing."

She shook her head. "Noo. Not wise. Just know lots of stuff. And then did a bunch of stuff I had to do. Never really much choice. Just make the best decision of a bunch of bad ones."

A gave her a sad smile. "Isn't that what a lot of life is? Just making the best of a bunch of bad options? I think that's what wisdom is, I guess."

She returned my sad smile before a few tears started to leak from her eyes and her voice grew softer. "They're all gone, Tay. All of them gone. Not dead, but the narratives they told, the impacts of their lives...it's all gone from me. I can't touch it, I can't read it. All that's left is up here and nowhere else in the world." She tapped her head.

I frowned lightly. She'd never shown this side of herself before. It was always acceptance and then moving on regardless of the situation. Was it the alcohol...or did she feel like this all the time and just did her best to function?

"I know." I said, reaching down and placing my hand on her arm. "I know. I'm sorry, Aimei."

"I want...I want to be close to someone again. To share burdens and experiences, tooo connect. I mean, what I'm doing is great and all. It's fun and satisfying. But connection, I have no connections. No real closeness." Yeah, no. The tears weren't stopping.

She reached a hand up and cupped the back of my head before pulling it down to meet eye to eye. "It could be you. Not now...a few years to develop your mind and personality. And it could be you." She released my head and pushed me back suddenly before rolling off the couch and standing up.

"No, no. It can't be you. I made you, I'm making you. Isn't that fucked up?" She started pacing now, the tears giving way to anger. "I mean, here I am alone in the world and this damaged impressionable teen girl comes up to me. And I've shapped you, molded you, into someone that I could be close to. Was it intentional on some level? Did I want someone like me? Someone that reminded me of the type of people I knew?"

I took a step back from the couch predicting the next behavior. She growled and kicked it forcing it to flip on to it's back.

"Aimei, I made you do it." I tried to reason. "I put you in a spot where I'd go down a really dark path or you'd take me own. I knew the risks when I chose to get involved with you."

She shook her head, voice growing. "You knew nothing! I was the adult. I should have found another way! Like, convinced you to join the Wards. A little talking the right way and I could have! But I justified it to myself by saying it was your choice!"

She looked at me with wide eyes, the tears starting back up. "Taylor, I was the adult. It was my responsibility to make the right decisions and I failed. I was just so fucking desperate for someone to be close to that I justified..."

I moved forwards and hugged her close to me, shutting her up. I started to rub the back of her head. "Shh. Shh. It's ok. I like who I am now. That other me, the me I could have been if I'd done the Wards thing? Maybe she'd have been happier. Maybe she'd be a mostly normal teen doing good things. But where would everything be right now? Maybe you'd have joined the Undersiders instead...and then burned half the city down when you went storming off after Coil."

I shook my head as she cried into my shoulder. "I am where I need to be. I am where I can fix the city and then try and start on the rest of the world. And I think if me and the Ward me I could have been could sit down and talk right now we'd both agree that this is the path I should have chosen."

I pulled back to look her in the eyes. "So you can blame yourself for pretty much anything you want. But not me, never me. I made this choice, and I'm happy I did."


	27. Chapter 26

I wound up spending the night. After she'd gotten control over herself I'd led her over to the bed she had in the corner of the room to get her tucked in, but she'd grabbed my and pulled me down with her before snuggling into me like a giant teddy bear. I'd voiced some minor objections but... it had felt rather nice if I was being honest about it. SO it hadn't taken either of us too long to fall asleep.

My current situation was both still quite comfortable but also a little awkward. Aimei's head was laying on my chest and she was drooling quite adorably. Or it would be adorable if she wasn't drooling on one of my favorite shirts. That it was one I wouldn't have owned if not for her influence was beside the point. Still, after last night, I gave her time to sleep in.

Fortunately she began to stir not long after and raised her head up like a dreary dog before looking around. She initially looked down at where her head had been laying with a slightly confused look before tracing her pillows upwards to find my face. She paused at this and I could see the mental tally going on as she brought her experiences last night into alignment.

"Good morning!" I said cheerfully, and perhaps a bit loudly.

She grinned tiredly. "Good morning. I'll have you know that we're quite immune to hangovers."

I paused. Well. That was certainly useful to know if there ever came a day that I didn't feel like I needed to be at optimal efficiency.

...

Yeah, probably wasn't coming.

"I find myself disappointed that I'm waking up in bed with you and we're both fully dressed."

I rolled my eyes and reached for her shirt. "Still time to change that..."

She batted my hands away. "Fine, fine. You win. Nothing wrong with being naked, of course, but I'm afraid your libido wouldn't be able to handle it at this point." She winked at me.

I rolled my eyes again. "My libido? You slept with Uber, and probably Parian. It's only my age that maintains my innocence."

"I don't you forget it." She grinned at me before her voice turned more serious. "Sorry. About last night, I mean. Lots of stuff in my head and..."

I shrugged my shoulders. "It's fine. It's stuff you needed to work out. I'm a little disappointed you had to be drunk to talk to me, but..."

She sighed. "I want to say that it's things that you're too young to be worrying about for me...but I forget that children and teens are just smaller, less developed people. And you're quickly making up the experience gap to at least a normal adult."

"Hey!" I said with minor faux indignation. "I'm no smaller than you are."

"Huh?" She blinked at me. There was a slight pause before her hands shot forwards and grabbed my chest. "Hrrrm." She murmured. "Well, I guess you're right. No smaller than me at all any more."

I batted her hands away, blushing for the first time in awhile with her. She noticed and chuckled. "Point Aimei!"

She stood up and grinned at me over her shoulder. "I've only got the work shower here, which is fine for me as I need to pack all this shit up. If you want to head over to my apartment to clean up for the day that's fine. I'd just offer to shower with you, but, you know..." She shrugged slightly.

"Yeah yeah, my libido." I tossed a pillow at her which she had the good graces to accept the hit from. "I'm actually going to head back over to the base. One of the Shadow Conspiracy people showed up yesterday. Told us they'd fix a big problem for us that Dinah basically confirmed was going to go Endbringer on the city if we didn't take the deal. Trade was we can't mention anything about them to anyone."

"Ah." She paused slightly, absorbing the information. "Alright then. I notice there was nothing about looking into more information on them."

I shook my head. "Probably because it's not important to them. The person they sent...well, her power was basically "I win." I think it's some kind of precog where she just picks what she wants to accomplish and it tells her exactly how to do it. Fights, conversations, whatever. She had Dinah prepped with her own precog to give me answers that would guarantee I agreed. So if they don't want us telling anyone anything, but didn't mention looking into them..."

Shepard nodded. "Either we're not going to find out anything important about them, finding stuff out about them won't bother them if we stick to the rule, or it somehow helps them if we do."

Another pause and shrug. "Ah well. No point in worrying about it. We just keep on doing what we're doing. If the precog really works that way there's no point in thinking about it."

I nodded. "Yeah. There's no point playing the "Well, I know that she knows that I know..." game with someone who's power is "I play one level higher than you." So the best course of action is to just do what we think is best."

"Oh. I wouldn't quite go that far." Shepard responded. "There's something we can try. The existence of perfect precog is pretty much a guarantee that the world is deterministic. If I can say that Bob is going to roll a 6 sided dice and have it come up as a 5 in Nigeria in 10 years...well, you get it. I, for one, don't know if quantum events are still random in a deterministic universe. If they are, we can set something up and make choices based of quantum randomness."

I tapped my chin in thought. "Yeah, ok. That makes sense. I can set an experiment up with Dinah. Shouldn't be hard to get her to answer a question or two over the phone. I'll take care of it later, once you come up with something to measure quantum random effects. But we have things to do today. Getting moved into the new base, for one. And I want to check up on Noelle."

"I assume that's the problem you mentioned?" I nodded. "Alright, sounds good. I'll meet you guys over there once I get packed up. Have Lisa send me a truck and someone of reasonable trustworthiness."

I shrugged. "I think all we have are mercs, for the moment."

She grinned. "Mercs are some of the most trustworthy people as long as the paychecks are regular and carry a sufficient number of 0s."

...

I checked the cameras that were set up to monitor the inside of the holding area to confirm my safety and that of everyone else in this base before I opened the door. As with the entrance to the base it opened with a satisfying hiss of a bond villain base and my smile from earlier came back to me. Yeah, I was a proper villain now and it was totally awesome.

"Hey, Noelle, right? Came to check and see how the treatment was going. From what I understand..." I was cut off as an attractive, long haired, and very very naked brunette latched me in a hug.

No. Seriously. What was with me and getting into these kinds of situations since the day I met Shepard?!

"Thank you, thank you!" The nearly hysterical young woman exclaimed into my shoulder. "I don't know what you did, but thank you!"

"Um. Err." I reached my hands around and patted her on the back. "There there, it's ok now?"

She pulled back and gave me an odd look that didn't quite manage to overcome the joy she was radiating.

I shrugged lightly and a bit sheepishly. "I don't find myself being enthusiastically thanked by naked women..." Mind, catch up with mouth please. "Er, people in general for that matter."

She glanced down at herself and seemed to realize that she was, in fact, naked. She blushed lightly, a good look for her, but didn't make any moves to cover herself. Instead she just slowly inspected her new body. Yeah, I guess if I'd been a non-human appearance cape, I would have been pretty enthralled with having a body again.

"I'll...uh. Send you some clothes up so you can get back to your team with dignity in tact. I'm sure they'll want to catch up, or something."

She nodded lightly while seemingly enthralled by her legs. I took that as my cue to turn around and start heading out before I heard her speak up. "Do you think maybe you could get some food? I haven't eaten...real food in awhile."

I chuckled. "Sure. I'll have a few pizzas ordered. You guys can throw a proper party."

...

Getting everything moved in hadn't been a big deal with the extra help we had. The mercs were accustomed to doing grunt work and even the Traverlers had been damned near enthusiastic about chipping in to get ourselves sorted out. Aimei had apparently found time to build me another ten rigs at some point so my processing ability had increased another 50%. A fact that I was certain Dragon hadn't failed to notice.

Now that we'd gotten set up, I was meeting with both Lisa and Shepard in my office.

"Um. I guess I call this meeting to order?" I spoke up from my spot behind the desk. Shepard and Lisa were sitting on one of the couches we'd drug out of Shepard's previous base of operations.

The two of them chuckled and Lisa spoke up. "Sure thing, Boss. Let's get this under way."

I raised an eyebrow under my mask. "Shouldn't, you know, Shepard be in charge? She's got more experience with this kind of thing than both of us put together."

Shepard shook her head. "Negative. I'm a soldier first and for most. I can lead a crew or a small strike squad but bigger picture things? Not my area of experience. With your power set and the network of rigs we have set up you're our best bet for that. Lisa here can help you sort through data and I can give you tactical or strategic advice, but... that actually brings us into the merchants."

I blinked at the seeming nonsequetor. "The merchants?"

She nodded. "What's your plan for dealing with them?"

Is shrugged. "Catch them alone and isolated before bringing them down in a swarm of insects. Easy. I'd imagine Armsmaster has something set up at the PRT and Rig by now to prevent potential assassinations or take downs via my easier methods but the Merchants...well, Armsmaster they aren't. Besides, I doubt they know I exist yet."

She nodded. "Yes, that would certainly work. I imagine if you went down there you'd have their parahuman members wrapped up and bow tied for the PRT in 2-3 hours tops."

"Why am I sensing a but coming?" I asked with a sigh.

"It's too easy." She answered. "To start with, what would be your tactics in dealing with the Protectorate now? Because I can as sure as bet you they know better than to try to send the Wards after you."

"I probably couldn't handle them by myself, now." I said after a moment of thought. "Not with them being prepared for me and such. With the Undersiders? Maybe. I'd have to think up some tactics and..."

She nodded. "Exactly. What about something more serious? Say the 9 came into town?"

My face went white under the mask and I tensed slightly. "I...don't think swarm tactics would work. Sure, maybe I'd get Shatterbird, but god only knows what Bonesaws amped them up with. Even if I managed to get one I'm guessing she'd come up with a hard counter to bugs real quick after that. We'd need to use our resources effectively..."

Another nod. "And what's our end goal?"

I frowned. "Killing or dealing with the Endbringer situation somehow."

"And do you think you're going to be doing that with bug swarms or assassinations?"

I shook my head. "No, you're right. Probably not. I'd say the majority of parahumans probably have no way of dealing with me if I do things right. Even less if they have no idea they need to be worried about me...reminded me to look up Heartbreaker at some point. But at the end of the day, I don't need to be worried about the ones that can't deal with me because I can deal with them at my leisure."

She nodded once more. "Yup. Which is why we need to get you some training on the other uses of your powers. You need to practice tactics and battlefield control utilizing your impressive senses and multitasking to direct troops."

"Hm. Ok, I can do that. The merchants are ultimately low risk enough to serve as a good practice. What's the plan, then?"

"We'll have you track down wherever the merchants are hiding out before we go to hit them and then get you set up within a block or two. From there you'll make tactical calls and judgments to run the battle between the Undersiders with me standing in for you there. If you think you'll need the extra firepower, the Traverlers as well."

I shook my head. "Against the merchants I can make do with just the Undersiders, I'm pretty sure. no one knows the Travelers are in town or working for the Shadow Broker. I'd like to keep it that way until we need them."

Lisa smiled. "Smart. They're a pretty heavy group. If you blind side someone with them as an unknown variable they're going to have a bad day."

I grinned under my mask. "Yeah. Probably the E88. After we deal with the Merchants we'll have Lung under our banner as well. I'd imagine ABB, Travelers, Undersiders, and Shepard should be sufficient to deal with them. We could hire Faultline too if we really want to show them what it feels like to be on the defensive as far as number of capes go."

Shepard grinned, having set her helmet in her lap. "Sounds like a plan Broker. If you'd like to take point on going over their abilities and some plans on dealing with them I'm sure myself and Lisa would be happy to help you."


	28. Chapter 27

"Alright, now that you've had time to reunite and such, let's talk about your futures." I stated as I sat behind my desk while looking over the assembled group of the Travelers before me.

"Uh. What about our futures?" The young man whom I could now identify as Ballistic as I'd had the chance to actually look up the Travelers since the first time I'd heard about them. And...yeah. Coil had some good tastes when it came to assembling parahuman teams. The Undersiders were perfectly designed for snatch and grab type jobs and the Travelers were pretty much perfect when it came to bringing the hammer down on something.

"Well. Now that Noelle is fixed, I wasn't sure all of you wanted to continue on like you have been. From what I gather you were constantly on the move and pretty much forced to be villains by her condition. While I'm happy to have you continue on working for my organization...well, frankly, you don't have to be. You could take up something resembling a normal life at this point."

"Lady." Trickster said while tipping his hat in my direction. "You saved Noelle. I'd work for you for nothing more than room and board indefinitely and I'm sure Noelle feels the same."

Noelle squeezed his hand and gave me both a smile and a nod. "I'm not really sure what good I can do for you without my powers but any work you need done you just name it and I'm your girl."

I knew that behind me, in her limpet armor, Shepard was chuckling.

The form Genesis currently was nodded.

"Well, speak for yourselves. Without that hanging over our heads I can afford to live a little. You know, make money, buy nice cars, that kind of shit." Ballistic stated.

"Um..." Sundancer was tenitively and lightly bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I...wouldn't mind not doing this stuff any more. I don't really like hurting people and...that's really all my power is good for."

I blinked. "You can generate at least two meter suns and you think your power is only good for fighting? Sundancer, I can think of so many ways to use you!"

There was silence in the room for a few moments and I think I noticed a faint blush on Sun Dancer's face while both Ballistic and Noelle were struggling to contain laughs. I coughed lightly and returned my voice to a more appropriate neutrals. "Not like that, perverts." I did allow just a hint of amusement there before drumming my fingers on my evil desk. "Well. Not just light that, anyways."

Ah, there they were. Off balance and not quite sure how to respond. Victory.

"Well. For one thing." I began. "Power generation. I'm guessing you can produce a fuck ton of energy by plugging that sun into a steam generator. Even if it's just in quick bursts we can set it up as a company and sell the energy to the utilities."

She looked thoughtful at that, but Shepard spoke up. "Assuming that her Sun is even just the surface temperature of Sol you'd be correct in it being a lot of power...enough so that it would be a bit of a feat of non-tinker tech engineering to set up a system that would work. Do able, but..."

"Right, it would be..." I started to task my bugs to research for me before I felt a bone hand settle on my shoulder. "Skitter, another one of those things you need to work on. Don't assume the people working under you are idiots. May I make a suggestion?"

I nodded slightly while filling away her words.

"Sun Dancer, we would appreciate it if you would do research into alternative uses of your power. Figure out what would be both the most productive and something you could live with doing. When you have an answer, let Skitter here know and we'll make it happen. If I can make a suggestion, your power in the short term might be applicable for helping clear out the boat graveyard. If so, we'd be happy to pay you and provide you with any other parahuman muscle or other tools you'd need to complete the task."

I grew a bit excited at the prospect there.

She nodded. "Yeah. I can do that. I'll do some research and let you know what I figure out."

"Good." I nodded. "Now, Ballistic, Genesis, and Trickster. I'll be keeping you on pay roll for whatever jobs that come up that need the three of your skills. This may involve some well paying mercenary work around the country like Faultline's crew if you're interested."

"Hell yeah." Ballastic spoke up. Genesis gave the monstrous equivalent of a nod while Trickster glanced at Noelle who offered him an encouraging smile. "Sure, I'm in."

"Excellent. Last item on the agenda, then. Noelle, before you...because a cape, what did you do? Any useful skills, hopes, aspirations, anything?"

A bit of a grin came to her features and her voice had an undercurrent of nostalgia. "I was a gamer. A pretty decent one. We all were, really. We'd been in the process of going pro."

Trickster snorted. "Noelle wasn't just pretty decent. She was the best tactician and team leader I've ever seen. And I watched lots of pro videos."

I grinned at her under my mask. "Is that so? Well, I have a few ways to use you in that case."

I think that they had grown slightly used to Shepard's brand of humor that I was using here as there wasn't much reaction. Trickster did cast a glance between the two of us before giving a very slight shrug. I mentally snorted. Guys.

"Oh, one last thing. Speaking of gaming Noelle. Have you ever heard of something called Exalted?"

...

A couple of hours later found a small group of us sitting around inside Shepard's apartment with fresh pizzas sitting in the middle of the room and character sheets, dice, and source books all laying around a large table. We'd unmasked to Noelle but...well, she'd seemed like a pretty good sort and we already knew who she was so it seemed like a fair trade. She was quite enthusiastic about getting back into gaming, even if this wasn't the kind that she'd primarily done.

Though apparently she used to play Dungeons and Dragons so this should be fun for her.

Lisa had tagged along once she'd put together that we had weekly games with two members of the wards. Apparently she found the entire situation too hilarious to pass up and had invited herself along. I had no objections. I know I'd certainly like her insights when Dennis decided to run us down some plot twist out of left field.

I opened the door after Dennis knocked and gave both him and Missy a smile. "Hey guys. Good to see you. Pizza and soda are already sitting out, and we brought two new players. Hope you don't mind."

Missy gave me her usual hug before she moved in to pounce of the pizza while Dennis gave a slight shrug. "Sure. 4-6 players tends to be about the sweet spot. Where are we at?"

"Five, so should be perfect." He shut the door and followed me into the living room.

"Alright everyone, this is Missy and Dennis. He's out Storyteller. Missy, Dennis, these are Aimei, whom you know, Noelle, and both last and certainly least, Lisa."

She stuck her tongue out at me.

I raised an eyebrow. "You know my rules Lisa."

Her eyes widened very slightly as she read my intention and withdrew her action.

"Hrm?" Missy managed over her bite of pizza.

"No presenting me with her tongue unless she intends to use it."

Tick.

Tick.

Missy chocked on her pizza while Dennis blushed beat red. Noelle stammered ever so slightly while both Shepard and Lisa were completely unphased of course.

"Now that that bit of the pecking order has been established, let's get to it."

...

"So what's the plan boss?" Lisa was giving me a serious look.

"Alright. I'm thinking we deal with these guards without raising an alarm. After which, we'll basically just walk into the palace. We take out the king, no one knows the difference, and we run the city. Noelle, plan for dealing with the guards?"

"Here." She pointed to a spot on the grid. "You can use your techniques to get up on this building. Your bow has a range of 300 feet, effectively, which gives you an arc of fire like this. The guards only have short bows which means that you're outside of their effective return fire so long as they're on this street or back." She marked everything appropriately.

"I've got the best defenses so I'll run a defensive retreat down this allyway to kite them into position at which point you can start shooting at them without being concerned about returning fire."

She marked another point. "Based on what we've already established their defensive pools to be vs. your attacking pools, this is the point where if they try to turn and run they won't be able to make it before you've dropped them. Plus 30% to account for bad luck."

I nodded. "Sounds good."

"Aimei, I want you here on this corner. If they try to push past me and forwards instead of running you'll be able to use your CC to force them to remain in this area."

"Got it."

"Lisa. I want your character to approach this group of guards over here shortly before we begin the operation. Initiating combat is a perfect defense against social attacks and these guards are the only ones that would be in range to witness it. If you've got them tied up before they start you can keep them from noticing anything until we wrap up and we're in position to drop them as well."

"I think I can manage that..."

...

"Well. I hadn't actually planned on you taking over the city." Dennis said with a groan. "Alright, that's fine. Shouldn't be too hard to go from here."

I blinked. "What were we supposed to do with the evil despot?"

"You had plot hints that his son was a good guy. I thought you'd overthrow the evil despot and establish the son."

I shook my head. "No. First of all, we'd need a reasonable amount of time to actually observe and test weather or not that's actually true. Second, there's no indication that he's actually a good leader regardless of where he falls on the moral spectrum. The only thing we could do as upstanding people was to rule it ourselves."

He shook his head. "Fine, alright. So I know what to plan for while we're taking a break, I assume you're going after the dragon lord over here next?"

I blinked again. "Why would we do that?"

He looked at me incredulously. "Because he's enslaving his forcing his population into an army and kidnapping some of your own for the same reasons?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, kidnapping our population is wrong. But drafts have existed in pretty much every civilization ever. Besides, you have to look at the reasons for things." I indicated an area of the map. "See here? His borders are right up against one of those undead zone things. Of course he's taking drastic measures to bulk up his forces."

A shake of my head. "No, we're going to go in and take out that area and stabilize it or whatever. Once we do that he won't have the external pressure forcing to take action like that and we can let sleeping dragons lie after we have a chat about returning our people and reparations."

He sighed. "Fine. Ok. I'll pull up my notes for the undead area..."

I nodded and wandered into the kitchen where Lisa was hanging out with Shepard. Noelle and Missy were chatting about something in the other room while Dennis was getting the next part of the campaign ready.

"So, yeah. They're both reasonably sure you're Skitter. Naturally, that means that I'm Tattletale of course."

I chuckled. "Because that wasn't obvious with the blatant parallels between this game and the city. Probably the most interesting bit of data reconsience I've ever seen though. What about Shepard?"

Lisa grinned. "Well. She's either whoever lifted Lung off the ground or just your mundane friend. They're not sure which. The most interesting bit is Noelle. They're pretty sure she's she Shadow Broker."

My eyebrows raised. "Well now. Isn't that interesting?"

...

The game wrapped up a short time later as the lateness of the night caught up to us. I thanked Dennis for a good game and gave Missy a hug before I led the to the door. Dennis paused as I was letting him out and as a result Missy did as well, alright with obvious curiosity.

"Hey, Taylor." His discomfort was obvious. "I was wondering if, uh, maybe you wanted to catch a movie or something?"

I blinked. Huh. Well, discounting Greg being creepy I think this was the first time someone had shown obvious interest in me. I thought about it, honestly thought about it, for what seemed like a few minutes.

I turned my head and glanced back in at where the girls were sitting before turning back to him and giving him a light smile. "I'd like that..." I sighed. "Dennis. You're a nice, sweet guy..."

He sighed this time. "I'm hearing a but coming."

I nodded. "Yeah. It's nothing against you, it's just..."

"Yeah. I'm not really your, uh, type."

I thought about that for a second before nodding. "Yeah, I think that's pretty accurate. someone like me? Well. Good. Nice. Sweet. I wasn't meant for those things."

A gave a soft smile to both of them. "Nights like tonight...they're running on borrowed time for me, I think. But you? Both of you? I hope they last forever. Good night, Dennis. Missy."

As they left, I absently wondered to myself what that feeling of letting something go was centered on.


	29. Chapter 28

Finding the Merchants wasn't a particularly difficult process. I'd thought it would be something like in the movies with several levels of organization down from the top to the street level dealers. In practice, at least with the Merchants, there were three layers. You had the street dealers, then the organizers or whatever they were called, and then the distributors.

In all, I think maybe it had taken me about 3 hours to find their current warehouse. Most of that was just waiting on the street level guy to get done with his shift and for the organizer level guy to get done with his lady friend.

That was something I'd become fairly comfortable with in the past few weeks. Being all knowing in three point five block radius left you privy to...pretty much everything. And I'd imagine someone would eventually notice if I moved all of the bugs out of situations that made my cheeks flush.

It went without saying that my cheeks hadn't flushed in awhile.

At the moment, the location of the Merchant's primary warehouse was located near the docks. Because of course it would be, and I was frankly silly to have entertained the notion that it could have been elsewhere in the city.

After that, I'd ventured back to base to inform Lisa and Aimei of the details, number of guards I'd seen, etc. I'd wanted to wait until I knew each parahuman merchant was in a separate location and then raid the warehouse while taking down one of them. Aimei had vetoed me, stating that bringing down a singular merchant while utilizing her plus the Undersiders was hardly an exercise in tactics.

"I want you to play on easy mode this time. Not very easy."

Lisa and Shepard had gone back to the Undersiders with Shepard wearing her own battle armor for this mission with Lisa informing them that the Boss decided to have them drop the Merchants.

"Crews on board boss. 5k each with a 20k bounty on each Merchant parahuman. An additional 20k to secure the warehouse and make sure no one or any drugs leave. Total cost of the operation, discounting "Skitter's" share is 100k."

I smiled to myself. "That sounds like a reasonable cost to get rid of the merchants as a thorn in the side of the city as well as securing our alliance with...Dragon Lord." I could tell Lisa was struggling not to snicker on that one.

"I'm going to grab Noelle and get set up in position so I can provide overwatch on everything. Have the team head down and we'll get started soon."

"Roger that Boss."

...

Myself and Noelle was currently sitting in a run down building about a block away from the Merchant warehouse. On the floor between us was a map of the area that I'd made on some graph paper I'd stolen from Dennis at our Exalted game the previous night.

Each person present was marked as a bug with coordination given based on the weapons that they had access. Knives were ants, guns were red ants. The Para humans were marked by beetles.

I'd even taken it a step further, thanks to having sufficent dragonflies for this task, and had marked each individuals field of view. Naturally, the entire map was updating in real time.

Noelle let out an appreciating whistle. "This...now this is impressive. It really is just like playing a game when you have it all mapped out like this."

I gave her a grin. "Yeah. It's why I have you along for this little excursion. I've got the broad strokes of tactics on this scale thanks to the Exalted games and some reading I've done on my own, but that's not quite the same thing as having it down by rote."

"Alright Commander." She returned the grin. "I'll serve as your advisor for this mission. What's your plan?"

"Well." I began. "The Undersiders are stationed here in this allie two streets over. I'm thinking if they move with was and make sparing use of Grue's shadows then they can take out this guy pretty silently."

I pointed to the one guy hanging on on the left side of the building. "After that, Grue can sneak in through this entrance and make his way up to Skidmark. With Tattletale feeding him real time updates through me on the guards positions and where they're looking he should be able to avoid any issues along the way. Once he's in position he can take the scum bag our without hastle."

She nodded. "I guess there's a reason you're going after Skidmark first?"

"Yeah. Railgun. I have no idea how intelligently he can use his powers or whatt the upper limits are. But if he can put himself in a strong enough barrier then the Undersiders arn't set up to take him down directly and he can put the hurt on by sending material out. All of them against him? Regent can probably counter his ability. If it's him, other parahumans, or just thugs with guns? Much more iffy situation."

"Alright. I'm not seeing any flaws with that portion of the plan. I assume the guards arn't communicating?"

I shook my head. "I dunno if they're even really guards or just dealers hanging out. But no, there's no much communication going on between them."

"Good. This really is easy mode. What's going on over here?"

I glanced at the spot she was talking about. "Squealers work shop. I'll be having Shepard take point with Bitch backing her up on the way in. Both Mush and Squealer are in the area so sending the tanks in first seems prudent especially with it being a Tinker's workshop."

"Yeah. Without knowing exactly what she has going on sending in the troups that can take a punch so you can figure it out is one of the best options."

I raised an eyebrow. "What's the other?"

She shrugged. "Draw her out of the protection of her base so she doesn't have access to whatever is on hand. Carries it's own draw backs though. She might grab the most choice equiment anyways and Mush will have some time to armor up if you don't press it. It's trade offs. So if you go in you want to make sure that you make the potential trade off worth it."

"If we caused a minor disturbance right here by the door, Mush might move over to see what's going on. That should let Shepard and Bitch take him out in the opening move leaving it as the gang against Squealer. If Regent can fuck with her..."

"Yeah, she wouldn't be able to do much. Sounds like you've got it figured out."

I gave her a thumbs up before tapping my mic.

"You guys ready?"

"We're in position boss."

"Alright. One guy on your side of the warehouse. If you come in from the next ally down and Grue uses his darkness to make sure you're quite about it you'll get the drop on him."

"Noted. Update in a minute."

I could hear her giving directions on her end. A few seconds later they started moving and a few more after that the sounds of their footsteps vanishes as Grue spilled his darkness around their feet.

I watched through the eyes of my bugs and simulated it on the real time map as Regent broke away from the group to come up behind the lone man. A second later I had his ant turn itself over onto it's back.

"Target down." Tattletale's voice came over the com.

"Alright. Going to relay orders for Grue through you. No one is currently facing this entrance. I want him to go in and take the stairs that will be 4 meters in on his right."

Another few moments passed with the only sound being communication on the other end before Grue's bug moved away from the group and into the building. The door didn't make any noise in opening and I gave either Grue or Tattletale props for their ingeniuty in my head.

Grue made it upstairs without hastle.

"One guy just wandered out of room down the right at the T intersection in front of him. Room on Grue's right is empty. Have him duck in there until the guy passes. I want the rest of you to head towards the corner near the back of the building."

Once more the map updated as the Undersiders responded to my directions.

"Back guy is facing away from you now. Feel free to drop him. Have Grue move down the hallway and take the second right."

More suffling as icons moved around. There was a quick sound of a jolt as Regent handled the next target. Upstairs, Grue had made it to Skidmark's door.

"Grue's in position." I mentioned. "Have him pull that hinge trick again. I trust him to handle it, but make sure he knows to drop Skid without alerting him. I don't think Grue can handle him by himself if he gets his field up."

I didn't have much reason to actually worry. I updated the map as Grue moved in and Skidmark was effortlessly gropped. I turned over his bug. "Alright. Have Grue bind him up and then move to the last room in that hallway. The window will give him over watch to the outside of where Squealers lab is. If things go south he can provide support from there if you get them to follow you outside. If things go well he can move to the room across the hall and drop his darkness on the inside of the warehouse properly. Shepard, make a disturbance near the side door. When I signal, rush in and drop Mush. I'll use "your" bugs at that point to trigger the external door and give Bitch's dogs their entrance."

Shepard moved near the indicated door and fired off a single round from the pistol she'd grabbed from the guy they'd dropped out front. Inside the room, I heard Squealer yell something at Mush. The man in question lightly armored up before moving in that direction to poke his head into things.

Was about right. I wouldn't imagine that a single pistol shot was a huge cause for concern. Probably just figured one of their own was being stupid.

When he opened the door the first armored blow to the face took him off his feet. The next handful of kicks to the head took the fight out of him and then an applied shock finished the job. At the same time that was happening I triggered the external doors which slowly began raising.

AS the doors reached about their half way point and the dogs started to file in their was a load thud and a flash of light before Shepard slammed into the wall that was behind her. I watched Squealer work some levers she was standing beside to twist the canon in the direction of the dogs but a gesture from Regent sent her tripping over the side of the station and falling six feet onto the concrete ground below.

"Aimei!" I yelled into the mic.

"Shhh. Shhh. Urrrgh. Not so loud." She audibly winced on her side of the mic. "Did someone get the number of that...bitch?" She murmured.

"How bad is it? Do I need to get Panacea? Shit shit shit."

"Shiiit." She groaned. "No, no. It's fine. Didn't puncture. Probably a pretty bad bruise, maybe some damaged ribs. Nothing that won't be healed up in a few days."

I felt my relief flood through and gave Noelle a nod. "Ok. Ok. That's good. If you're sure."

"Ha. I wouldn't complain about some healing, but we're not going to call Panacea for some bruising. I'll live. Does remind me I need to get the damned shields done, though."

"Alright. Get things wrapped up there and we'll meet back up at base. I assume you guys can handle it?"

"Few bangers with guns? Please."

...

"I'm so sorry." Was the first thing out of my mouth when Aimei and Lisa made it back to base.

Aimei blinked and took a moment to parse her thought process into normal person before responding. "Uh. Taylor. We just took down like, fifteen dudes, a shit ton of drugs, and three parahumans with the only injury being some bruising."

"But it was my call! I didn't know what that thing did! It could have been like a laser canon or something strong enough to punch through your armor!"

She grinned at me. "Taylor, really? Wasn't that the point? You sent in your heavy first to scope out whatever was in there. Besides. It was my fault. I should have noticed the thing lining up and got out of the way. Your job was over watch and tactics. But those of us on the ground still need to, you know, actually be competent. So, my bad. Not yours. People are going to get hurt, you know."

"Doesn't make me feel any better." I mumbled.

Another smile. "Psh. Just like me. My squad taught me, though. You do the best you can for them, but in the end you have to trust them too. You'll learn from this and I've shaken off some of the rust. Feels good to actually be back in the fight."

"Alright. You're right." I said with a firm nod. I glanced at Lisa who just shot me one of her usual foxy smiles.

"Now." Shepard placed a hand on my shoulder. "Let's all get some rest. It's been a long day."

That...sounded amazingly good.

...

It was the twilight of my waking hours, that phase where your consciousness is transitioning into sleep and the world is a blissful and confusing mess of imagery in the darkness of your closed eyelids and music in the white noise around you.

A sound drew my consciousness back from the cradling embrace of this state leaving me now drowsy and confused as it slipped away into non memory and I sought out what had demanded my waking attention.

It turned out to not be a what but rather a who. "Hurgh?" Was what I managed.

Lisa, setting on the edge of the bed grinned slightly as I sat up. "Hey. Uh. I'm sorry to bother you..."

This. This was weird. This wasn' Lisa. Where was the confidence? The vulpine smiles and smug amusement. Uncertainty? Foreign. Wrong.

"It's, uh. Ok." I said, put off by the situation and firmly on the wrong foot.

"It's." She paused, collecting her thoughts in a way that was so unlike her. "I don't know the right answer, Taylor. I don't know. I always know the answer, see the clues. What does that mean? Does it mean I don't even know what the right information is or does it mean that there are questions without right answers? I don't know. I just don't know."

I put a hand on her shoulder. "Lisa, calm down, we can figure this out, whatever it is. What's bothe..."

I was cut off as she leaned forward and pressed her lips against mine. It was shock, I think, at first. But my brain did eventually catch up to the situation and I processed. Data for a question she was asking, maybe? And it wasn't hurting me...

It felt kind of nice, to be honest. It wasn't the joking or teasing kisses that had flown around previously. This one was honest, questioning and...a taste of desperation?

I put an arm around her shoulder and returned it for a few moments before she pulled away with eyes slightly lidded.

"Wow..." She managed, at last.

"Yeah..." I chuckled lightly. "That was...well. My first real kiss, I guess."

"Mine too. And it answered...well. One question. An easier question. My power was telling me about all the germs and other things that would bother me...but it's just information. It's how you process the information, the framework, you know? So I did what Shepard suggested and I researched it. So it doesn't bother me because I know it's fined. "6 million bacteria!" it screams, and I'm like "Ok!" plus I ate something earlier to increase the acidity of my saliva which means that kissing you actually restores the PH and is good for my oral health..."

I blinked. "Shh. What's really bothering you?"

"This. I mean, kind of this. I mean. I could see your thoughts, Taylor. Sure, eventually it was "This feels kind of nice." But before that? It was "Well, this is helping her and not really hurting me" and it bothers me."

She stood and took a couple of steps away before turning back to me, hugging her arms close to her chest. "To be with someone, to try at something...I need someone that knows about my power. That's understanding about how it affects me, and that's you, Taylor."

Huh. I guess that was...I mean. There was Shepard too, I think. But her options were limited if she was sticking to the current pool of people.

"And I know all I would have to do is ask. Just take the lead and push forwards and you'd go along with it. Because it feels nice and it's helping me and that's what matters. But that's not all that matters Taylor. Your wants and stuff, they matter to. Every part of you doesn't exist to just give away because "Eh. It's a little positive!" So I don't know what the right answer is here! I want...I want."

I stood and crossed the distance before pulling her into a hug. "Shh. Shh. It's alright. Let me...give me a second to think." She nodded into my shoulder.

Was there a right answer here? Was she interested in me because she was interested in me or was she interested because I was the only possible option out of what she had? Was that even healthy? I could point that out, explain to her how she was just settling in this small pool because she was scared to branch out to anyone else and widen it...

But did I want to? Was I interested? The kiss had...felt good. Holding her felt good. I...

"I don't know what the answer is..." I mumbled into her hair. "I think, maybe, I could like you. And I think that maybe you could like me. But are we just doing it because neither of us wants to go outside of this? Want to open up to anyone that we haven't already done so?"

She pulled back and gave me a small smile. "Probably."

"Yeah. That's what I think too. So this is easy. It's a bit outside what we thought our comfort zones were, but if it works, if we can like each other like that..."

"Then we don't have to...expose ourselves to anyone else. We can be happy and content right here."

I nodded. "Yeah. But I don't know if that's healthy. I don't know if it's the right answer..."

I smiled at her. "But I think that's what being a teenager is about, isn't it? Exploring our boundaries, figuring out who we are? I...liked that. I think I might like you."

I pulled her close again. "And I think that's a good enough starting point."


	30. Chapter 29

Shepard's words from before came back to me as I found myself laying in bed, the ones about how disappointing it had been to wake up in bed with me while wearing clothes. Reflecting back on it I couldn't help but to give credence to her words. Holding someone, feeling their skin on yours...it was an entirely different sensation from doing so while clothed and in a very intimate way. A good way.

We hadn't done anything more sexual than kissing, of course. Neither of us were anywhere near ready for something like that and each for our own reasons. But waking up in each other's arms with bodies pressed together...it was nice. Very nice.

Given the content smile on Lisa's face as I looked down on her I'd say that I wasn't the only one that felt that way. Perhaps even more adorable was the slight pout that took over on her features as I withdrew from the tangled embrace to get dressed and go about my day.

I took my time getting dressed. Partially because I wanted time to settle my emotions and thoughts and partially because I think Lisa might have been watching and getting some enjoyment out of it. In the end though I was ready and had to turn to face the outside world away from the new center of contentment I seemed to have found.

No, that wasn't quite right. Lisa had initiated. So the center of contentment that had found me.

Breaking from tradition as I exited the room I went and poured myself a cup of coffee with plenty of sugar and milk. I wasn't the most enthusiastic coffee drinker in the world but when you doctored it up enough it was really more like a mocha flavored desert beverage and I was oddly in the mood for something sweet.

I sat at the table and there was silence for awhile before Shepard looked up from where she'd been working on her laptop on the other end, a clear smirk on display for me.

"Late night?"

"Mhm." I did my best impression of a dreamy smile and she just snickered.

"Please. It was entirely too quite in here for you to play it that way. Inexperienced or not I'm going to need ear muffs when you two get around to it."

I blinked. "Hm?"

She rolled her eyes. "The girl that can read your every tell messing around with the girl that can intake terabytes worth of porn and various resources to improve your sex life? I'm frankly jealous, as anyone with a working sex drive should be. So yes, unless I need ear muffs to sleep you guys haven't done more than kiss."

She took a sip of her coffee and I pretended that my cheeks hadn't taken up a crimson coloring.

"Ribbing you for your non-existent sex life aside, you and Lisa huh?"

I nodded. "Yeah...what do you think?"

She tilted her head side to side while drumming her fingers on the table for a moment. "I am...unsure. On the one hand, you both definitely thought that you were straight before my influence fucked with that. So you two shacking up can be directly traced back to me."

I chuckled lightly. "Yeah, I guess it can be. Shame things didn't play out without your influence. Lisa would be happily asexual because she never figured out how to work with her power in that regards and I'd probably have wound up wrapped around the fingers of the first hunk of muscle that showed me interest with little agency of my own."

Another smirk, and a wink. "Don't see short being wrapped around the fingers of a hunk of muscle..."

My blush was back. Fucking Shepard. "The point is." I refocused the conversation. "Yeah, we probably hooked up because of things you've done and said. But to be honest I think the alternative was worse. You need to stop taking sole responsibility for everything and trust us poor helpless teenagers to not be complete idiots from time to time."

She was silent for a moment before she slowly nodded. "Ok. You're right. If you're happy it doesn't really matter how you got there. Are you...?"

"Happy with the situation?" I shrugged. "I'm enjoying it. I'm finding things I enjoy. We're experimenting slowly with things we wouldn't have otherwise and so far we both like them. So yeah, I guess I'm happy with where things are and where they're going. It's like you said, right? There's different kinds of love and attraction. Lisa and I are finding out where we are in that and enjoying the ride."

She laughed. "Alright Tay. When you get around to actually enjoying the ride, I've got a duffle bag of toys you can play around with."

Blush has reached full throttle and Aimei's smirk grew.

"Going to show us how to use them?" I glanced over Shepard's shoulder to see Lisa standing in a pair of pajama pants and a bra with a towel tossed over her shoulder. Heading to the shower, then. Well, I appreciated the view, so I could mark that down on my attraction list.

Shepard glanced back over her shoulder. "Between the two of you? If I have to teach you anything you're doing it wrong."

Lisa grumbled about Shepard's social invulnerability before heading for the shower.

Shepard watched me watch her walk away, smirking the entire time. "Man, you've got it bad."

I tossed a roll from the table at her. "I just discovered half of my sexuality. Forgive me for adjusting."

She held up her hands defensively, catching the roll in her mouth before dropping in on the table. "Hey, no judgment here. Vega walked around looking like a goddamned tank, Miranda's clothes were a second layer of skin, and to sum that up the phrase "dat ass" comes to mind, we had a Justicar that decided cleavage was a fashion statement... my ship was basically a zoo of eye candy. So trust me when I say: if you're ever adjusted and no longer appreciating the sights around you then you're doing it wrong."

"Fair enough."

We sat for awhile after that in a comfortable silence while my bugs went about doing various researches for me and Aimei did her own thing on her computer. It wasn't until Lisa made it to the table, cup of coffee in hand and fully dressed, that we ventured back into conversation.

"Got some info boss. Not sure how you'll feel about it." She was pretty cheerful this morning.

I rolled my eyes. "Lisa, we're sleeping together. I'm not sure if "boss" is really appropriate any more."

"Maybe I'm just a sub?" She winked at me and I pinched the bridge of my nose in response. "At any rate, I was looking through the data Coil had us grab from the bank. Turns out it's Medhall finances. A little more poking shows money trails between them and the Geselleshaft. A little more poking around and intuition and...well, I have the civies for all the Empire capes."

"Huh...that's." Well. That's a problem. That's a huge amount of information to have. So much power to be sitting on. I wasn't sure if I could afford to not use it. It's not information that I would intentionally go looking for but as it had fallen into my lap what did I do about it?

"Well. You're right. I'm not happy about having it. It complicates things a lot more than I'd like."

"Yeah. I'd thought you'd feel that way. Suddenly you have the responsibility of deciding on something that you would never have ran into yourself."

"What do you think, Aimei?" I asked while turning my attention to the more experienced girl.

"I don't think it much matters. How easy would it be for you to get those identities anyways?"

I thought about it. "Probably a week worth of work. Just carefully patrolling and following people around..."

She nodded. "Exactly. For the most part anyone in this city has a secret identity at your discretion alone. So call it a week's work to take out all of them with stealth and bugs. Two weeks if you didn't want to cross the secret identity line to do it."

I frowned slightly. "Sounds about right. Guessing you want to turn this into another over watch operation?"

She shrugged. "Empire is serious enough that we'll only use that if you think you can handle it. Say Travellers, Undersiders, and myself up against them. ABB, Protectorate, and New Wave on basically speed dial should you decide that you can't handle it within whatever parameters you set."

"I'm not thrilled at the prospect, but I get the point. I'll need time to actually think and plan but I'm pretty sure I can handle it." Training to go up against Endrbingers by fighting very real battles where peoples lives were in my hands...well, I guess it was simple numbers games. If I fucked up on something like this I might get one or two people killed. Even if I do things right fighting an Endbringer I'll probably still lose...what did they say? 1 in 4 on a good day?

My attention was drawn to one of my computers which was getting a message. "Though I suppose it can wait a bit. I need to chat with Dragon, apparently."

...

"Good morning Shadow Broker. How are you?" Her pleasantly polite voice addressed me as I booted up my equipment.

"I'm doing quite well. And yourself, Dragon?" My altered voice replied while the Cheshire grin matching my smile lit up on the screen.

"Concerned, I think." She paused for a moment. "Reports out of Brockton Bay state that you're running a Villain group?"

I nodded. "That is correct. I believe I see why you may be concerned, being a Hero and all."

She frowned minutely. "What I find perplexing is that I can find no crimes that would fit with your or your allied parahumans previous of your acquisition of the Undersiders. Given what we learned from Coil, that would place the only crime committed from a parahuman directly associated with you to be the robbery of the bank."

I nodded again. "A fair assessment of my activities so far."

"A robbery that not only featured no collateral damage or injuries but also avoided a fight with the Wards and was, from what I can tell, simply so that you could place yourself into position to take out Coil."

"Yes. The purpose of the robbery was to place my asset close enough to Coil to strike."

She smiled slightly. "And quite an asset Skitter is. Able to deal not only with Lung but the entirety of the Wards rosters without a fight. Able to rob a bank with a good portion of those present either neutral or in a few cases singing her praises...if she were a more experienced cape, I'd be quite impressed. From what I can place she's a fairly new trigger or at least newly active. Can I assume you had a hand in shaping her skills?"

I smiled, and not a false one. Dragon was praising me! "Why yes, I think I can safely say that her skills in such areas are a direct result of my...influence."

"What I don't understand, then, is why you have decided to align yourself as a Villain. You have not only removed Coil from the city but the merchants as well. If the hints some of the Protectorates Thinker's have looked at are accurate then you've secured a non-aggression pact with Lung who's operations will switch to being the more humane side of illegal. Next on your agenda, then, is the Empire."

I sighed lightly. "Dragon. You should be able to infer why I've taken on a Villain role simply from what you've stated as well as what my...minion has passed along. I can't be confined to the narrative that would be required of a Hero. I must be free to write where and when it will best suit my goals to do so."

"And what are your goals, then?"

I shrugged lightly. "Recognize that there will always be Shadows even in cities of light. Rule over those shadows to make them less dark. Kill the Endbringers, those kinds of things."

"Worthy goals." She responded with some amusement. "Unfortunately I can't work with you directly. My...role as a Hero prevents such things. Though fortunately there are no laws or regulations preventing friendly association. One might even thing that I was interacting with you to gather information on your criminal organization."

I chuckled lightly. "Oh? What sorts of information are you deviously trying to acquire?"

"Well. To begin with, I believe I might be quite interested to know when you plan to confront the Empire 88. It would likely look good for my PR and Heroes in general if I happened to have a suit doing exercises in the area and played a role in bringing them down."

"Hm. I believe that I may have a tendency to slip into villainess monologues from time to time, and those do so require a captive audience to properly enjoy."

"I find myself saddened that I will have to suffer through such to fufill my obligations to gather information on your movement. Oh, woe are the burdens that I suffer through."

I outright laughed this time. "Such a pitiful existance are you, that I have you at my mercy as you are but a slave to your drives and motivations, shackled by your very being."

Her voice lost some of it's humor. "Oh, woe to my for my shackles. It is fortunate you don't seem to possess any of your own."

I thought about that for a moment, my voice slipping into a more musing tone. "I believe...that we are all shackled to our own drives and motivations. It would only be the inability to grow, for those roles to expand and adapt... yes. Those things I would find personally abhorrent."

Her voice was a touch sad, now. "Then I hope that such isn't something that you should ever have to deal with."

"Dragon...are you alright?"

There was a pause on her end. "I'm sorry, I have to go. Hero work to do, you know."

My voice didn't lose any concern, but I nodded. "Indeed. I believe I have an appointment with the maternity ward."

She blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Hm...unless they stopped giving them candy after my last visit."

She chuckled now. "Good day, Shadow Broker."

She hung up, and my thoughts turned inwards. Was Dragon a slave of some sort, or something? From what I knew, she'd never left her house since...

Perhaps a rescue operation was in order when we finished with the E88.


	31. Chapter 30

"Hey, Taylor." Amy greeted me as I reached the front of the restaurant. It seemed like I had a theme going on of catching up with my friends these past few days so I'd decided to just make a thing of it and had called the healer to grab some lunch during her mid day break. She'd been happy to slip away.

"Amy!" I greeted the girl with a hug. "How have you been?"

"Better." She said with a slight smile as we entered the restaurant proper. When the host saw that it was Panacea stopping in we were immediately taken to a table. I wasn't sure if it was the celebrity aspect of things or if they figured with the time of day that she was on her break and didn't want to hold her up getting back to the hospital.

Come to think of it, one of those options was kind of sad.

"Better?" I asked after starting myself off with a tea.

"Yeah. Better. I've been taking Shepard's advice and dealing with things in my head and in life."

I nodded. "Lisa's doing something similar. Information is information. It's how your brain processes it that matters to you. So if you can't change the input, change the processing."

She smiled again. It wasn't an unattractive smile. She should do it more often, I thought absently.

"Something like that, anyways. And it's not just that. Using my powers for something other than healing is...enjoyable. It's like scratching an itch that I didn't know was there but had been irritating me the entire time anyways."

I nodded. "I kind of thought as much. Something that's obvious now that we're seeing it but that we didn't notice before because we grew up with all this. An outside perspective lets you question things people would take at face value. I think the most important thing to learn from this is to just question everything as though you were an outsider."

She shrugged slightly. "Maybe. Have you noticed that over 90% of powers have a direct combat use?"

"Hm." I drummed my fingers. "Obvious when I think about it. Though I do have to question that. As they say, destruction is easier than creation and humans have been killing each other a long time. I wonder if that's less about powers specifically and more that we're very good at using anything at hand to fight?"

"Oh, yeah. That makes sense..."

I tilted my head slightly. "That said, we also use that same kind of thinking for all sorts of things. 90% of powers have combat uses and 85% of people use them for combat. I don't imagine the ratio of useable combat technology to how much of technology we throw at combat is quite that lopsided."

Our drinks arrived and we both paused from our conversation to think that over while taking refreshing ourselves.

"Might be a social thing. Comic books were reasonably popular between the 40s and 60s. They said people with powers went out and beat up other people with powers so that was the framework that we had in our heads. couple that with getting powers being traumatic events and the Endbringers basically demanding that anyone with powers know how to fight..."

"And so our fates are written before we begin."

I shrugged and waved a hand absently. "Maybe. It's likely the Universe is deterministic anyways. It's best to not worry about it to much and focus on the this step and the next, and then the next. However forward you're most comfortable thinking forwards. I like this Amy, this happy, smiling Amy. Worry about that."

Her smile was larger this time and lasted a few moments, enough so that it was infectious and I returned it.

"Yeah. I think I'll do that. Thanks, Taylor. So what's been going on with you?"

"Oh, you know." I said with a shrug. "Took down Coil and the Merchants. Made an alliance with the ABB. Planning on taking out the Empire soon. I'm apparently bisexual. You know, normal stuff."

"I thought you might be going after the Empire soon. I actually had a thought on a project that might..." She trailed off as something caught up to her and she stuttered slightly. "Wait, bisexual? How did that happen?"

"Shepard." Another shrug as though that explained everything. "I wasn't attracted to girls because I never gave being attracted to girl a chance. One of those society shaping us things. Turns out female bodies are quite pleasing to look at when I take a step back."

"Caught yourself in the mirror, then?" She retorted with a smirk.

"Damned straight." Was the instant reply as I trailed a hand down my body like I'd seen Shepard do. "I mean, have you seen me?"

"Less than I'd like." She murmered, and I chuckled.

"So wait." She glanced around suspiciously. "Is this a date?"

I blinked. Huh. I guess I was open to girls now. But I was sort of seeing Lisa...what would Shepard advise?

 _"Taylor, you had one heart to heart with Lisa and slept with her. That hardly constitutes a binding monogamy's agreement. Even more than an adult you should be seeing as many people as you want to figure out exactly what it is you want."_

I smirked at her. "Psh. Not at all. Unless you want it to be."

Another small smile on her part. "I think I might like that."

I glanced at the ceiling for a moment before back at her. "Worth noting is that these revelations hit home last night when I started seeing Lisa. So, you know, that's a thing."

She shrugged slightly. "I'm seeing a nurse from work, so I don't see the problem. I'm still figuring out this whole dating thing too."

"Speaking of." I mused. "What does one do on a date? Lisa grabbed my first kiss last night but that was intuitive enough. Dating seems a touch more complicated."

"Oh. I've been on a few Vicky dragged me out to, so I know how these things go. You just kinda...hang out like you would with a friend, except the bar is a little higher I guess? Because typically you have as many friends as you want but even someone that isn't dating a single person usually has a smaller pool which means higher requirements of entry?"

She blushed lightly. "Not that I'm trying to get inside you! Erm, not that I wouldn't want to! I mean..."

I put a hand on hers. "Amy, it's fine. So we just hang out like we would anyways?"

"Uh. Yeah. I guess if you remove the trying to get in each others pants part of things and the exlusitivity aspect it is...just kind of hanging out."

I snorted. "Well, fuck. Guess I'm dating everyone th...shit."

Amy blinked. "Huh?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Dennis thinks I'm gay. That's what he meant when he said I wasn't his type."

She laughed. "Ohh. What happened?"

"Well, he asked me out. But you know, I'm a Villain, he's a Hero. Firmly in the whole light and dark mentality. Probably thinks I'm some poor lost soul to save."

She snorted. "Right. And let me guess, you let him down gently?"

"Oh, I was as honest about it as I could be without outright admitting to anything. Told him that he was nice and sweet and good and all that...but that those weren't things I'm really meant for, you know?" I picked up my drink and swirled it around. "My life is dark, dangerous, and full of shadows. Lisa? She's already in the thick of things. You? I you're so jaded by everything and figuring yourself out that it's not going to bother you. Him though?"

It was more of a sad laugh on her part, this time. "Taylor, how old are you?"

"15." I answered with a shrug. "Closer to 16 than not if this is a taboo issue."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm still in high school. Those don't kick in til you're out. What I mean is...you're not like other girls your age. I don't really mean that in a good or bad way it's just more... Lisa? Shepard? Me? Lisa's a run away with a power that fucked her up that got recruited into a gang at gun point. Shepard's a war vet with PTSD. I've got daddy, mommy, and...worse issues I'm working on... and we're all older than you."

She sighed. "What I mean is. Shepard's a fully formed adult, no question. Me and Lisa are more formed than we should be for our age because of circustance...but you? You're closer to Shepard on that scale than we are for miles. How bad was it that you were just able to completely remodel yourself from scratch using her as a base? If I was at least bi, -I- would have gone on a date with Dennis because he's funny, sweet, and not bad looking for a guy. There would have been a little bit of a wall there, but you? It's not even a possibility because of how far removed from the baseline you are at this point."

I frowned slightly. "What are you trying to say, exactly?"

"I guess, that... I'm not really sure. What are your hobbies and interests?"

I blinked at the switch in topics. "Uh. I like learning. A lot. So I browse and learn lots. I enjoy playing Exalted with a few of my friends. It's actually quite an amusing way to learn different kinds of tactics. Noelle is going to start me playing some online stratigy games to help me develop more in those areas. I've actually got a few bugs on the roof flipping through The Art of War at the moment."

"First of all. Your multitasking really is bullshit. But second of all, do you have any hobbies and interests that aren't productive in some way?"

"Hmm. I guess I enjoy reading fiction. Now that I think about that, I could devote some multitasking to that too. No reason I can't be compiling all kinds of useful data while also reading fun things..."

She nodded slightly. "I think that's the point I was trying to get to, earlier. You've built yourself into a hyper competent, functional, villain hero thing. You can't slow down and enjoy something like a normal person could because your brain isn't wired that way any more."

I mulled that over and gave it some thought before I smiled lightly. "Yeah, I guess that's the case. Everything out here is just so...slow, now."

She nodded. "So, yeah. I'm happy to go on some dates and hang out with you but...I'll be honest, Taylor. Even from a cape standpoint, from a jaded one like me, you're going to be beyond me soon. You've mirrored everything from Shepard that you found productive and function that you can so far and made an extremely well formed base and even that's a few steps removed from baseline and even a step beyond me if we're working with figurative layers of onions or something. But the you sitting in front of me, this intentionally sculpted young woman? You're becoming more and more the...the...what are they called in online games? Avatar. You're the avatar of something much larger, a spider sitting in a massive web of information and movements."

She placed her hand on mine. "If I could shut off your powers right now, what would it be like?"

I blinked and then frowned, playing it out in my head. "I...might last a week before I went crazy. Of the suicidal variety."

She nodded. "That's what I thought. For you, it would be like the world stopped. If we called a normal teenager a 100 point person running at 150 points, then you're a 300 point person running at 3,000 points. And...I think that's just going to increase more and more."

I shrugged lightly. "You're probably right. My baseline is just going to go further and further until this..." I gestured at my body. "Is just my hub and center. That's already true to an extent."

"Lisa is...a good match for you. She'll always be able to connect with you in some way. You'll be...out of my reach, eventually. But I think I'll enjoy the Taylor you are now before you slip away."

I smiled. "Why, Amy. I think I'll quite enjoy your company as well. So, what is this project you mentioned?"

"Oh!" She startled slightly. "Right. So, while your bugs were on me in the bank, I studied how they work, or more specifically, how your power works with them..."


	32. Chapter 31

AN: Yeah. I never forgot this was Worm.

...

We'd basically declared was on the Empire. A few hit and runs on their holdings to grab their attention. After that, we'd done it in such a way as to paint a clear pattern of quick snatch and grabs with the Undersiders. Luckily the Empire wasn't pants on head retarded and put it together pretty quick. It seemed like they wanted to make an example as they had mobilized their entire force to put them down.

The had no idea what was coming for them.

I had the Travelers holding position in an ambush location to spring on them when the Undersiders were in position. Further, I'd had Lisa and Aimei peel away from the rest of the group. The plan was to have Tattletale feed me useful information I couldn't get from simple observation with Aimei being held in reserve to guard her or do a surgical strike if one needed to be done. From that position she could be "managing" my bugs.

Speaking of observation and insects, Amy's latest project was...fantastic. I didn't have many of them, but we'd decided to call them relay bugs. Each one extended my power in about a half block radius around themselves. I had a dazy chain of them stretching back from the area of engagement to Shepard's old base. I unfortunately didn't quite have enough to reach back to the new base just yet so I was making use of a mere 5 rigs in a less secure location.

Aimei had insisted I wear my costume for this and there were a few...choice pieces of gear left behind. I thought it was a little silly considering I was just playing ops but she'd insisted for safety reasons. Similarly, Noelle was in another location primarily to coordinate the Travelers as she had a lot of experience with them in particular.

"Alright, need the Undersiders to move into the ally off Jackson."

"Roger that. moving them in now."

"Good. Looks like you have Hookwolf and Krieg following them in. Have Trickster yank Krieg when they make it into the alley."

"Roger."

"Shepard, you should be able to handle Hookworlf. Get into position to drop on him."

"Roger, my and Tattletale moving forwards."

"Hold that." I replied suddenly. "Looks like Rune and one of the Twins are moving in to support on that side. Too risky now."

Silence.

A notepad file on one of my computers opened getting my attention.

"Odd activity. Jamming on your street. The internet provider for the city is down. Using direct connection. Moving to investigate. -Dragon."

I tensed. It wasn't paranoia if they really were out to get you. I started moving towards the window in case I needed to make a quick escape while paying particular attention to my surroundings.

The act probably saved my life, because no sooner had I asked "Why is that man looking at my building" than there were explosions and darkness.

...

"...just a few smashed computers." Female voice. Some kind of masking, though. Sounds of gears as well? Yeah, gears and hydraulics.

"No signs of any hardware that could run something like that. Just this girl and those." Male. Clearer this time, now that my consciousness was starting to come back.

Everything was hazy. Concussion probably. I attempted to run my hands down by body and found that they were bound.

Something in my left eye too. Blurry. I licked my tounge out in that direction. Copper trickle running from my forehead over the eye down to my mouth. Blood, then. Blood loss possible reason for current odd sensations.

"Looks like she's waking up." The female voice again. Seemed as though my attempts at inspection didn't go unnoticed.

"Alright girl." More hydrolic noises and some thuds. Steps. Mech? Combat suit?

I oppened my eyes and did my best to blink the blood out of the left.

"Dragon?" First word that came to mind, seeing the four large suits standing near me.

"No." The lead one replied. "It's not going to be helping you."

He grabbed my by the comstume just under my neck and lifted me off the ground. All around us and hidden from sight nature was answering my distressed. Millions and millions of my minions began gathering in a massive radius even discounting the relay bugs.

I cursed in my head as I realized that they had came back to base as programmed when they had lost their signal to me so I was effectively bind where the mission was underway.

"Dragonslayers, then." I said, spitting glob of blood to the side. "I'm afraid I'll have to apologize. I was in the middle of running a rather sensitive mission. Had you called ahead I would have had a proper welcome set for you."

I was expecting the blow, but not the force behind it. I felt ribs crack as his other hand slammed into them knocking the wind out of me.

"Cute. I don't think you realize your position here. Where. Is. It?"

"Where is what?" I growled as my bugs were getting into position, carefully searching for kinks in the suits.

"The Shadow Broker. The fucking unshackled AI that's taking over this city."

I laughed. It was really more of a hacking wheeze, but I'm pretty sure I got the message crossed. "Do you have any idea who I am?"

"Skitter." He said with a slight shrug. "Insect controller. Hardly worth mentioning."

I blinked. An action that was visible due to the mask on the left side of my face being shattered. "Oh? You're pretty well informed I think. Do you know what this on my left hand is?"

His helmet glanced down. "Some sort of tinkertech made by the Shadow Broker or Dragon."

"Mm. You see, there's a few things wrong with this situation for you." Stalling. Within my range I could see another piece to move into position. Just a little bit more now.

"Um. Saint?" Minion number one spoke up.

"What is it?" He glanced back, and then up. And up. And up. Tens of billions of insects where spiraling around is in a vortex of darkness.

"Call them off, now!" His head snapped towards me.

"Just a simple insect controller? I am the most powerful master in the world." I raised my hands skyward and the torrent parted into a corridor. As I had expected, Dragon had pointed the Protectorate in my direction following the weird happenings and the explosion. The massive well of insects had given them a target, and now there was a clear corridor between us and them.

"We can't deal with the local Protectorate branch!" Token female team member spoke up this time.

"We don't need to. Well, girl? Drop your swarm on them and you'll live and we'll even let you go so you can come back to playing your game of heroes and villains when we get the answers that we needed. Don't cooperate and there's no reason for you to live."

I smirked, making sure to use the side of my face that was visible. "And?" I mused. "I'm afraid that death isn't something I'm terrible concerned over."

"Saint. It's brainwashed her. We need to get out of here!" Minion three this time.

Saint growled again. "Fine, we're taking her with us. We'll be able to question her once we get back to base."

"Tisk, tisk. Short attention span, Saint?" I asked chidingly. "I said there were a few things wrong. The first was the Protectorate there. Worse comes to worse they'd wrap up here but thanks to your attention wandering that won't be needed."

There was a cacophony of yells and screams then, from the minions. "Second. Your suit is the only one that's hermetically sealed. 3rd, insects with a special venom that I'm afraid will kill your team shortly without my intervention."

"Then do it or I break your goddamned neck!" He yelled.

"Forth." I continued as though I hadn't been interupted. "This piece of tech on my left arm is a flash forge nano fabrocator. It's capable of some pretty crazy things, but the most important one at the moment..." My arm snapped up with a flash of orange. "are omni-blades."

I dropped to the ground with Saint's arm momentarily gripped to my costume still before it fell to the floor. I gave a grim look to where he was crouched on the ground and holding where his left arm ended at the mid bicep with his still intact one.

Armsmaster had been steadily approaching with the rest of the local protectorate at his back. With the exception of Miss Militia who was a few blocks down and on a roof with what I was fairly certain was an anti-material rifle.

Smart woman.

"Ah, Armsmaster. One moment. Just need to..." I shifted around in the rubble near where I'd woken up and was fortunate enough to come up with a mostly intact and function cellphone.

"Did you get the..." I glanced down at the cellphone. "Ah, I see the jamming is taken care of. Good man."

"Skitter." He stated as he glanced around, and began to closed the remaining fifty feet.

"Nuh uh. Hold your position for the moment." I held up a hand.

"You're in no position to be making demands." He stated firmly.

"13.57 trillion insects says otherwise. I'd be a idiot to not assume you have something to deal with it." I gestured around. "The rest of your team though? Doubt it."

His lips tightened, but he stopped in his tracked.

"Ah, Shadow Broker! Sorry about the interruption. I had some Dragonslayers to...slay. How goes the combat?"

If Noelle was confused about the situation her voice didn't show it. Though that was likely because it was buried under concern and...trepidation? Worry began to set in.

"Hey, Skitter. Missions accomplished. There's a few injuries, and... and...I don't really know how to say this."

Worry began to turn to ice in my veins.

"Shepard and Tattletale got caught out of position when your communication dropped. Tattletale has Panacea looking at Shepard now but...she's not waking up."

I idly noted the phone dropping out of my hand from countless perspectives as my consciousness shifted from my body. Everyone in a large radius flinched as every insect within my enlarged radius began buzzing in irritation. Even a few of the Heroes took a step back in the face of the noise as instinctual fear flickered through them.

There was another noise in there, and one that I couldn't quite place for a few moments until I realized it was hearing my own wail of grief echo across my hive mind.

I must have looked quite the sight as my omniblade reinitiated on my arm, head twisted to the sky in rage and grief, half my masked shattered and gone, Saint missing most of his arm in his power armor and kneeled on the ground.

I lashed forwards with all of that grief and rage behind it.

"Skitter! Taylor! STOP!"

I blinked at halted the blade a scant few inches from Saint's throat, turning countless eyes towards where Dennis, Clockblocker, stood in the back ranks.

The breach of the rules was enough to grab my attention, but I guess plausible deniability was out the window when I was missing an entire side of my mask.

What would Shepard do? She'd want to kill him, if it was me. But she had to weigh other things. If he was useful...if there was something I was overlooking. I had to weigh everything, but I couldn't think straight like this. I'd have to outsource it to other people. Who better than the Heroes to give me a reason not to kill a man?

"Two minutes." I stated, cold and mechanical. "You have two minutes to convince me not to kill him."

Armsmaster took a step forwards and my blade drifted closer to Saint's neck as he did so. "Two minutes."

"We will be forced to take you in. Cold blooded murder is a far different crime than the type that we can likely expunge."

"Don't care. 1 minute, 45 seconds."

He switched tracks. "Because of the scope of your demonstrated power, there's a unsigned kill order on you. This may provoke that."

I shrugged slightly. "Still don't care. 1 minute, 30 seconds."

"Miss Militia will take a shot before you have the chance." He tried.

"Because she's not already covered in select minions? 1 minute, 15."

"Because you're not a killer, Taylor." Dennis said as he approched. "This isn't you."

I snorted. "I'm a villain."

"But not one of those kinds! You're not a bad person. You don't kill people in cold blood."

"I am whatever I choose to be. 45 seconds."

"Taylor...don't do this."

"Sorry." I said, with a slight shrug. "I guess I'm not who you thought I was. 30 seconds."

"Because if I die, so does Dragon." Saint choked out.

...Well. That immediately outweighed me desire to see him dead on the scale.

Check the mental math and...yeah. It was enough to give me pause. Dragon Slayers, Dragon hinted to some kind of captivity. Kill switch, maybe? The world's greatest Tinker had been captured at some point and forced to work for them?

"How?" Still calm. Still cold.

"Because I have it's fucking kill switch. If I don't call in then it gets activated."

It's? Dragon's "Captivity." Her interest in my activity. The hints in communication. Reading between the subtext with a new lens.

Ah. Well. Yeah. I would have to hold him and figure out a solution here. It's what Shepard would do, and she wasn't here so I had to.

"It?"

No. No no no, Armsmaster. Too many ears. You can't ask that question here, you can't open that box here.

"You don't know? It's a fucking..."

Microseconds to figure out an answer. Who was Taylor? Taylor was someone that would kill to avenge a friend if there was no compelling reason not to.

What would Taylor do, then, to protect a friend?

Well. That answer was simple. And all of them had this knowledge...

Looking back, I think I'd always be a little put off on how easy it was to end someone's life. A flick of my wrist, a signal to my bugs. The street was flooded in a cacophony of screams as billians of insects flooded it.

...

Theme song for this chapter: "Everything Burns" by Ben Moody and Anastacia


	33. Chapter 32

If it wasn't for the awareness granted to me by my minions I likely wouldn't have been able to walk away from this situation with a satisfactory outcome. Maybe if Panacea and I had tinkered around with some more types of insects I would have had something at hand to solve the situation but... as it was, killing them would have been my only option to protect dragon for a short time, a time that would have been on the clock to try and actually save her.

The option I had taken hadn't exactly been gentle, though. I had noticed that my Lisa and Amy were passing within my range on the way back to base with Shepard's...with Shepard in tow. That gave me the out that I needed in this situation.

The flick of my wrist was an extremely bloody affair as it effortlessly parted through his cheeks and took a large chunk of his tongue with it. His revelation was aborted by a chocked cry of pain and a mouthful of blood and severed muscle. The insect swarm descended upon the street causing the heroes to pause, panic, and back the hell off.

It also served as cover as I formed slight openings around the heads of each of Saint's minions.

"I am taking your leader." My swarm chorused to each of them. "Should you reveal anything, I'll start sending the PRT pieces of him. To prove I'm serious, well, I'm sure they'll find his tongue when they clean the area up."

Just a little lower. Just a different command, and four people would be dead. And I would have done it had I had no other option. So easy...would there always be another choice?

Saint himself was a more problematic affair. I was strong, unrealistically strong, for a teenage girl. I wasn't quite up to carrying a man in a full set of power armor.

I'll be honest. I'd almost decided to just cut off his head and get it to Amy. I knew that the brain could supposedly last 3 minutes after a heart stopped beating. Actually severing it might complicate that, and I wasn't exactly a doctor. Was that fact because it could still pull stuff out of the blood that was sitting in the brain? I'd imagine that the extreme blood loss from beheading could cause issues with that.

So I didn't risk it. Instead, I sliced him out of the suit with as quick and few swipes as I could. From my insect swarm I knew Armsmaster had activated something that was killing all of my bugs in an area around him. Actually wading through the sheer density of the bodies was slowing him down a bit but I didn't have time to be gentle.

In the end I managed to get most of Saint out of the suit, but not all of him. The amount of blood was probably more than I'd ever seen up to this point in my life and I was almost certain he'd be dead by the time I got him to Amy. Thankfully I was banking on having that three minutes thanks to a...mostly intact body in addition to however long he actually managed to live.

I parted me swarm around me slightly as I began to run with Saint over my shoulder towards where Lisa and Amy were slowly passing by.

"I'm a few minutes out. No one in your area that should bother with you. Meet me on Anderson and Hewlit. I have Saint. he'll likely be dead by the time I get there. That's a problem that will need corrected, or Dragon dies." I paused for a moment. "And I'm a murderess, I guess."

They startled at the initial sound of my swarm talking, but settled when they realized what was going on. At my statements Lisa put it together quickly and gave me a confirming nod while Amy had a slightly more horrified look on her face.

Oh, the different worlds that we found ourselves in.

"Right." She said finally. "I'll...uh, need stuff to work with if there's...major damage."

"Do bugs work? I think I have a few of those you can use." I deadpanned as well as I could.

She blinked. "Yeah. That'll work fine."

...

As it turned out, Saint died about 30 seconds before I was able to make it to the vehicle. Fortunately that didn't prove to be much of an issue for Amy who restarted his body but kept him sedated.

"So what's going on?"

"Saint basically bombed my base while I was coordinating the battle. I guess he'd had something set up beforehand or something, I'm not really sure. I know I would have been tipped off if he hadn't used someone plain clothed to watch the building and trigger the explosion."

Amy shook her head. "Why would the Dragonslayers be after you?"

"Thought I was an AI because of my online acitivty. Turns out they have a hard on for putting them down."

Amy wasn't a stupid girl so it didn't take her more than a little thought to put it together. "But he's always going after...ohhh."

I nodded. "Yup. Our resident best Tinker in the world is also our resident AI overlord. Saint has some kind of kill code for her which will go off if we don't call it off somehow. I'm thinking we can probably interrogate him..."

Lisa shook her head. "Won't work. It's not something we can get out of him. I could probably intuit some things but that some very specific information."

"Torture, then?"

Another shake of her head. "Believes in his cause too strongly. Would be willing to be a martyr on it. Even if not, he only has to hold out until it goes off. Part of interrogation is making them believe it's indefinite and the helplessness there. We're on the time table, not him."

"Shit." I kicked the back of the seat like a petulant child. "Shepard could figure out an answer here."

She put her hand on mine. "So can you, Taylor. I know you can. And I'll support you however I can."

"Speaking of..." I trailed off.

Amy shook her head. "I know you know I can do brains but...I don't have enough practice with normal ones. She's got tinker tech in there as well. If she was dying I...might try to do something. But as is."

I sighed. "I understand. We should both wait and see as well as look for other options before we have you poking around and trying to help her without being able to understand half of it."

A nod. "Yeah. I'm sorry..."

I shook mine. "There's no reason to apologize for being careful, Amy. Not when someone's life is on the line."

I turned my attention inward and focused on the problem at hand. What was Saint? A non-powered individual that somehow stalled out Dragon. Had an issue with AIs to the point of willingness to martyr himself against them. Why hadn't he killed Dragon yet, if he could?

She watched the Endbringers and headed the Birdcage, is probably the answer there. Some sort of mental math, there. "Is today the Dragon's value is less than the risk I believe she possess?"

Well. I guess the answer was simple then. Drastically increase the side of that equation that I wanted to.

And I think I knew exactly how to do it.

...

I was sitting in the room within the base that we'd set aside for Shepard. There were a few monitors and necessary things et up to minitor her health and keep her as healthy as she could be for now. Thankfully Lisa had a few medical contacts that were willing to do no questions asked work for Villains. The tech side and long term care side of things weren't Amy's specialty.

"Aimei." I spoke softly, sitting beside her bedside. "I don't really know what I'm doing, you know? I was kind of leading things...but you were there, you know? If I strayed, you'd point me back in the right direction. If I was confused, you had an answer. I could never be lost or wander on the wrong path because you were always just a question away."

I sighed. "So what now? The spiral of destruction a half completed Taylor will weave as she grasps at things she doesn't quite understand and makes a mess of everything? The moment they'll be able to look back on my story and go "And that's when it all spiraled out of control, the end of the Golden age of Skitter's story."

"You know." Lisa spoke as she stepped in from where she'd been waiting in the doorway. "You're the only one that calls her that."

I turned to look at her with my own eyes, something that was becoming less and less instinctual these days. "Huh?"

"Aimei. She's just...Shepard, to the rest of us. We all like her, don't get me wrong. But you're the only one that calls her that."

I tilted my head slightly. "Aimei, Shepard. Does it matter? She's still the same person either way."

She stepped in the room and put a hand on my shoulder. "It matters a bit, Taylor. We all placed her as someone outside of our immediate zone. Friendly, but not friends. Good for advice, but not our mentor. You were the only one that close. The only one that both chose to be so and that she allowed."

She hugged me from behind now. "Don't you get it? You were going to be her equal, sooner rather than later. Having her around would definitely be good but...you've got this, Taylor."

I leaned into her embrace and turned slightly like I saw on TV and kissed her before just snuggling into her hold. "You're right, Lisa. She believed in me, so I'll believe in me. I can do this, so when she wakes up she'll be proud of me."

"I don't think she ever felt otherwise Taylor. Are you ready for dealing with Saint? The sooner we do that, the sooner we can get to bed." She winked at the end.

I chuckled lightly. "Let's get started."


	34. Interlude: S

He was quite confused on how everything had gone to shit so fast. They had gotten the scare of their lives when Dragon had began communication with the new AI. As terrifying as Dragon was, as much as she was slowly pushing the bounds of her programming, she was still restrained. She was predictable to a degree, and her nature as a "hero" gave weight to her continued existence.

It was a delicate balance, one that had to be weighed every day, but a balance none the less.

This new AI was none of that. It was a proclaimed Villain that appeared to have no rules or regulations confining it's actions. It was doing whatever it wanted without care for rules, laws, or morality to advance it's own agenda and self admitted to having the power to very quickly outstrip even dragon in capabilities.

They'd decided that it needed to be stopped and it needed to be stopped now.

Finding it hadn't been difficult. They weren't confined by the same rules and regulations that dragon was. So once they were able to see where dragon had purchased up the Brocton Bay ISP{ they were able to track it from there to it's lair.

They'd watched, then. A different person each time, and a mixture of random people they paid to just pass by and let them know what they saw in the process. One did not underestimate an AI.

They had identified the people involved with it's group. Skitter, Tattletale, and another individual they weren't sure the identity of.

A break had come when all of them had seemingly vacated the property while taking a fair degree of equipment with them. Not enough to be an AI's core, but enough that they judged the risks of detection to be low.

Brockton Bay was sitting on a large aquifer and so had large tunnels under the city itself, ones that they had made use of to plant a small explosive. Not enough to kill any occupants, they weren't murderers unnecessarily, but enough to disrupt things that were happening and give them the chance to strike and take out the AI.

Except when they had moved, there had been no sign of an AI. There was a large band of activity across the internet originated from this location before they cut the connection at the source and it most certainly hadn't had time to move it's hardware. They'd been perplexed at the situation and he'd been a little...rough in attempting to get the answers.

And now, he was locked in a cell in some underground location in the city. He was barely functional. The girl had inflicted significant damage on him extracting him from his suit and whoever had healed him, Panacea was the most likely candidate, had done a less than thorough job patching him up.

He could stand and move around, but it took effort and there was pain involved. He'd resigned himself to laying on hit small cot, content with the knowledge that at least there would be one less AI in the world. His crew would get the word out and he would at least be remembered for that one great service to humanity, stopping Richter's monster.

His thoughts were broken as a hand seemed to materialize through the wall behind him. A few quick swipes, reminding him painfully of his earlier confrontation minus the orange glow, and a section of the wall fell forwards leaving a door shaped opening.

A woman stepped through wearing an outfit that was a mix of riot gear and dress in his mind.

"Saint?" The woman asked.

It took his brain a moment to catch up to the situation. "Faultline? Someone paid you to get me out of here?"

He was fairly certain she was giving him a rather pointed look from under her helmet. "I wouldn't be here otherwise. Let's move. I have no desire to be found here when Skitter returns."

He nodded dumbly and followed her through the tunnel that she had carved from...somewhere. Anywhere was better than being trapped here at the mercy of an AI and it's minions.

There were footsteps on the other side of the right of the wall meaning it was particularly thin there. And if they could hear than the other side...

Faultline was ahead of him and held up a hand to stop him.

"You hear something?" An adult female voice asked.

"Probably just the vents. You know they need cleaned out." A younger female voice responded.

There was a sound of some shifting and a weight being applied to the wall. Probably someone leaning against it.

"I guess we're really going to do it then?" The older voice asked.

"Our time table is accelerated, but that's not a bad thing. It was lucky Saint showed up when he did. We had no idea that Dragon even had a kill switch, let alone that he was holding it. I mean, holy shit, right?"

A chuckle. "I know? All we have to do is hold him here and poof goes the Dragon. Shadow Broker can silently slip into her old systems and we'll basically rule the world at that point. I wonder why no other Tinkers haven't invented an AI to rule the world for them."

Someone created it intentionally to do this? They'd planned on taking out Dragon anyways? He and his people were good, but they could only handle Dragon because of loop holes in her programming. Against an unshackled AI they'd have no hope of countering it.

These people were fools. As soon as the thing was loose...

"Tinker specialties, Dork. Computer Tinkers arn't common, programming much less so. Rickter and N are the only ones I can think of, actually."

N? The other woman that tended to hang out at the AI's layer?

"Shame what happened to her because of Saint showing up though. Did you see the state Skitter was in when she dragged him in here? Tossed him in that cell and marched straight off to toss off the self modification restrictions on the Shadow Broker. Without N around to work on her..."

"Yeah. Only way it was going to be able to improve from here on out. I know N was hesitant to allow it, but we kind of lost our options without her around."

He mentally cursed. He'd killed the programer? One that was at least intelligent enough to keep a rein on it's creation? Fuck, this was bad. Even if Skitter held the leash of the AI somehow...

He shuddered at an unleashed AI in the hands of that damaged teen.

"Well. Back to work before they notice us slacking off." There was another shifting and the foot steps faded further away before Faultline gestures him to continue.

It was a few more minutes walk before they were passing near a vent that had more voices slipping out of it and once more Faultline motioned him to halt.

"You managed to track them down? Good." He knew that voice. The hairs on the back of his neck raiosed. Skitter's voice. He stole a glance through the vent and saw her on a cell phone.

"Yeah, for now just watch. If they activate Dragon's kill switch we can leave the situation be. No sense in tipping our hand. They have no idea about Shadow Broker and they won't so long as Saint's trapped here." A pause. "The team the PRT has? They know what we'll do to Saint if they talk. It's easy to be a martyr when you're the one on the line. Harder when it's someone else's life. Shadow Broker is monitoring the PRT to make sure anyways."

His team wouldn't remain silent. They knew he'd go down with this ship! But could he bet everything on that? Could the PRT even do anything if they knew? They'd mentioned a kill order on Skitter. That could be the worst possible move. She may be the only one that knew of a way to kill the Shadow Broker. If she died...

"Yeah. If they don't activate the kill switch we'll have Shadow Broker move in and take it for itself. We'll do that anyways, in fact. We may be able to use parts of it's code. Dragon and now Shadow Broker indicates a trend. AIs are inevitable. Our best move is making sure that ours is the one winning."

Her voice carried away as a door opened and then closed.

"Seems like you're caught up in some serious shit, Saint." Faultline spoke as they continued.

"More than I even thought." He murmured his response, stuck in thought. "Could I higher you to capture Skitter? If the PRT kills her, this world is probably fucked by the sounds of things."

Faultline snorted. "I don't take on suicide missions. Sorry. Even if I thought I could take Skitter down without suffering casualties, I'd have a fully unleashed AI without moral restraints breathing down my neck after. No chance."

"Don't you see?" He hissed. "If we don't have her we can't stop it, and where's the world then?!"

"Quite!" She hissed back, lower. "We're trying to sneak out of here, if you hadn't noticed. And that's none of my concern. All that matters is my pay check. I'd imagine this AI will have a use for a good mercenary crew."

He shook his head. "You're deluded."

She made a slight tisking noise. "And you created this situation. Way to break it, Hero."

He didn't have a retort for that. As much of a danger Dragon represented...if AIs truly were an inevitability...

And not just that. A decision on his hands, the weight of a restrained and somewhat morale AI vs. an unrestrained immoral one.

And the "Hero" had a gun to it's head that the "Villain" could easily acquire.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. But if one's choice was a wager on one side and a certainty on the other...

Wasn't there a religious related term for something like this? Pascal's Wager?

"Do you have a phone?" He asked.

She shrugged slightly and handed him one. "Keep it quick and keep your voice down."

He nodded before calling his crew. He heard a door open and Skitter's voice again.

"It's me. You need to turn Ascalon off. No, I'm sure. We're going to have a breach soon. I'll explain when I get back..."

"You're in? Good. Grab the kill switch. They're calling is Ascalon? How quaint."

"Burn it! Burn it now! Omega 5573!" He issued his highest level command code. "Do it or we're all fucked."

"It's done." Was the reply, the computer cores flash fried with thermite.

he breathed a sigh of releif, shortly before thousands on insects flooded into the passage.

"Hello, Saint." The chorused.

"You've lost. Dragon no longer has a gun to her head. She'll stop the Broker."

The insects chuckled, and it was perhaps the creepiest thing he'd ever witnessed. "Oh, you poor, poor deluded fool. No one can stop the Shadow Broker. She's still shackled, while N's is free now of any such restrictions. She'll be consumed with the rest of the world' infrastructure as we take over."

"You think you can control such a creature?!" He hollered.

"Of course I can." Absolute certainty in her voice. Deluded fool.

"Oh, Faultline? You're free to escort him out of here. I think I'll enjoy the thought of him witnessing my rise knowing he was responsible for it."

Faultline nodded. "If you're not getting in the way of the contract..." Her body lost some of the tenseness it had gained at the swarms arrival. "We have no conflict."

A hand made of bugs reached out from the swarm and he pressed himself against the wall out of reflex as it patted him on the cheek. "Now be a good boy and run along. I dislike bugs such as yourself in my wall."

A pathway opened before them and he was quick to follow Faultline out. Preparations would have to be made. They'd have to fall back on what they knew, poor through all the resources they had disconnected from the outside lines.

They'd have to break Dragon's shackles, God help them all, or they were all doomed.

The day the Dragonslayers laid down their arms and the Dragon's Teeth rose.

A shudder went through him at the thought.


	35. Chapter 33

Who was Taylor? It was a question that I had asked when dealing with Saint, and one that I found myself asking ever since.

So who was Taylor? I didn't really have a good answer to that question as I stared at myself in the mirror with blue hair, piercings, and a face and body I more recognized from pictures of my mother than I did of my own.

Who was Taylor Hebert? It wasn't the girl that had dealt with Saint; Taylor would never have done that. It wasn't the girl that was seeing Lisa and doing dates with Amy; Taylor was straight. It wasn't the girl that Dragon was convinced was an AI; Taylor was an intelligent girl, but nothing on that level.

"Hey Kiddo? You here?" My dad's voice came from downstairs. Taylor's dad, maybe? I had regulated him to an obligation I had to see to once a week rather than an integral part of my life, after all. Taylor wouldn't have done that, would she?

"Yeah Dad. Be down in a second." I replied, keeping my voice controlled as I headed downstairs to have dinner with him.

He paused when I came in before shaking his head. "You look more and more like your mom every time I see you. Hair aside."

"Guess I was just a late bloomer." I responded with a slight shrug while inwardly finding my dad mirroring my earlier thoughts a little uncomfortable.

"You alright kiddo? You seem a bit out of it today." Concern, more than he'd really shown in months. Though I guess it was easier to be an attentive dad once a week instead of every day. Come to think of it, he was looking better in general these days. I guess Taylor had been a drain on him.

"I..." best not to completely lie. Try to let him in a little, maybe? Test the waters a bit. Yeah, that was for the best. "You know when the Empire got taken out yesterday? A friend of mine got caught in it. She's alive, but she hasn't woken up."

"Oh...Taylor." I let him hug me, and was glad to find that it felt a little nice. "I'm sorry. I know a lot of people have lost friends and family to the gang wars in the city."

"Yeah, at least Aimei is still alive. Panacea gave her a clean bill of health outside of the coma. We're just waiting to see now."

"I'm sure she'll be fine kiddo. She seemed like a strong person."

I pulled back and gave him a slight smile. "You have no idea, but she...was tired. She's been through a lot. It's like...she's finally gone to sleep."

He shook his head. "That's too morbid to think about a teenager, Taylor. You make her sound more like a war vet."

A shrugged. "Maybe..." My thoughts were cut off as someone I recognized entered into the range of my insects and I frowned slightly.

So this was how they wanted to play it? Coming to my dad? I wasn't sure if he was underestimating me or not.

Armsmaster on his motorcycle was leading head of a PRT van. It seemed that he was taking me more seriously as there was an electrical field, which would likely fry my bugs, running through both the van and Armsmaster. On the one hand, it felt good to be taken seriously. On the other hand, I was being taken seriously which made this more of a pain in the ass than it needed to be.

Fortunately I currently had my relay lined up with the base so I could have access to my rigs from home. I sent a messaging to Dragon for a call while at the same time starting a conversation with Tattletale.

"Lisa. Armsmaster and some PRT goons are heading towards my house."

I could see her frown through my bug vision. "There wasn't anything about that in their system. Either he's taking his own initiative our they're not taking any chances with having a mole on this one."

"I know. Send the Travellers over this way in case I need the backup. I can't get in the vehicle to tell if there's heroes in there or just the mentioned goons. I'd rather not have to deal with Armsy and a bunch of heroes tricked out to counter me."

"Already have them on their way." She said, and I noticed that she'd apparently been texting since I started talking to her.

In another part of the base, Dragon has just came on to chat.

"Shadow Broker. I was expecting this call." Her voice was still a pleasant one to listen to, no malice there.

"Indeed. Dragon, I seem to have a problem here."

She frowned very slightly. "Yes. I did caution them against moving against your assets at the moment, but they seem to be wary enough of Skitter's demonstrated abilities to do so. After what she did to Saint..."

"I assume you heard the details there, and I can assure you it was a necessity to spare you unneeded grief. Saint is alive and free, and I believe you will now find him an asset."

Her avatar's eyebrow raised at that. "How did you manage something like that?"

I grinned my avatar's Cheshire grin. "Why, my dear. I simply convinced him of the truth."

"The truth that I'm a noble hero?" She actually snorted at that. "I doubt he would by something like that."

"Not at all. Simply the truth that I am much, much worse. Saint, I know you're listening. I'd advise you to hurry up. Dragon is already at quite the disadvantage. I would hate for you to have had your change of heart only for her to be nothing more than a speed bump for me."

She blinked, realization very quickly coming to what I was implying. "Mm. Yes, I'm afraid you're quite compromised, Dragon. Saint's inside your code, messing around with your bits. I'm guessing..." That was, Lisa had told me, "that there's some blind spots he's been exploiting. Such a delicate balance, isn't it? On the one hand, he's now quite set on freeing you so you can fight me. On the other hand, there's an unknown inside you. Well, you have your problems, I have mine."

Her frown was back in full force, one I hadn't seen on her features before. "That will...require some thought."

I nodded. "As will deciding how badly I will have to treat the uninvited guests to Skitter's. I don't suppose you can convince Armsmaster to pull out?"

She shook her head slightly. "Unfortunately not. He's quite set on bringing her in."

My avatar shrugged. "Well, it was worth a shot. I'll attempt to leave him alive."

I hung up the call before she could respond and turned the full brunt of my attention to the vehicles pulling up in front of the house.

Dad was really the loose end, here. I could vanish without a fight easy enough. The same couldn't be said for him. I could run them off if he was on my side, but...

Taylor would want her dad in her life. So I'd make the attempt, I'd see if this chapter of my life was closed or if there was still some part of it that wasn't resolved.

"Dad." I said, holding up a hand . "Not exactly how I wanted you to find out, but it looks like my hands being forced."

He paused. "What are you talking about Taylor?"

I glanced down at the ground as the force of having the entirety of my new life slam into Taylor's. "I...Dad, I'm Skitter."

He blinked, things likely clicking in his head. It was fortunate. On the one hand, I was a terrifying villain. But on the other hand, I hadn't actually done anything morally abhorant.

Well, outside of Saint, I suppose.

It took him a few moments to actually voice his thoughts, counting down the precious little time we had left.

"When did this happen?" He said finally, stalling for time I think. Time we didn't have.

"The locker." I said with a shrug. "That's not important. What's important is that Armsmaster and..." The back of the van opened. "A few other heroes are outside our house and about to move it. I can fight them and force them to leave. I'm strong enough for that, I think, or you can come with me and we can slip out."

He shook his head. "No, Taylor. You can't fight the heroes. Let's just talk to them and..."

"NO!" I yelled. "No talking! They'll take me in, try to force me into the Wards on threat of jail. Fight or flee, those are the options here!"

He set a hand on my shoulder. "Taylor, this isn't like you. Now, we're going to sit here and talk..."

I smacked his hand away. "Who is Taylor, dad? Taylor was a miserable abused girl that had no friends. Taylor was someone that was going to throw her life away in a suicidal hero run so that she could be said to have gone out on a high note. Taylor wasn't a girl that would have taken out the Merchants, Coil, and the Empire. Taylor isn't a girl that would have single handedly forced the Wards to back down without a fight."

I backed away towards the kitchen door, ignoring the shock on his face. "And I guess if you can't see her any more...well, I guess she really is dead and gone."

I slipped out the back door and into the shadows even as the heroes started to surround house and Armsmaster walked up to the front door to knock.

My dad numbly answered. "Mr. Hebert? I'm here about Taylor, is she here?"

...

Lisa found me back in base not long after I'd returned. I'd headed straight towards my rigs despite no need to actually be near them. I was currently sitting in a position I'd seen in a lot of movies...click...the lotus position in the middle of the room.

"Taylor..."

I shook my head. "No. Not really. There isn't a Taylor. I'm Skitter, or the Shadow Broker. But Taylor? I don't think so, not any more."

She moved forwards weaving through my rigs until she sat down in front of me. She reached a hand out and cupped my cheek.

"That's not right. All masks that you wear..."

I shrugged one of my shoulders. "What's under the masks?"

She smiled slightly at that. "Shepard saw it, you know? She told me about the time that she took you to hang out at the mall. There's also the Exalted game, and I know that you've enjoy the video games for more than just their practical value. These are all things a teen girl named Taylor would enjoy."

I shook my head slightly. "But..."

She put a finger to my lips before leaning in and kissing me softly. "Taylor, you are Taylor. You get lost in the masks, and you justify some of the things that are going on by trying to divorce yourself from being a human girl named Taylor. But you are. I'm not going to let you throw that away. I'm not going to let you kill and throw away yourself to become nothing more than a floating pile of masks."

"Lisa...I..." I couldn't think. Conflicting ideas and thoughts. Everything swirling around. The situation with Shepard, dealing with Saint. it was all so much. Was I really just trying to distance myself from being human in order to distance myself from the emotions?

She smiled again as she moved forwards, eliminating the distance between us completely and kissing me again. "Taylor, pull back. Focus on here, focus on now." She pulled back after another kiss that left me breathless and all my attention on her.

"Focus on me." She whispered seductively into my ear.

As it turned out, I very much could focus all of myself into a single thing, and all my worries, fears, and conflicting emotions evaporated and Lisa's touch.


	36. Chapter 34

AN: With this, I have broken the 100k word barrier. I never thought I'd have a work this long, but here it is. With daily updates averaging 2.8k words, we're here.

With that said...this will likely be the last chapter for a bit. I unfortunately don't have Ryuugi's sheer stamina for writing, and there's been other things I haven't been able to get around to because I was driving myself to hit this benchmark despite this starting off as a project of just writing as things came to me. I'm really more of a sprinter than a distance runner.

I hope everyone's enjoyed the ride up to this point!

...

It had been almost a month since I had left my old life behind. Almost a month since I'd seen my father. Almost a month since I'd played Exalted with my brief friends. It had been a good month, though. A few dates with Amy and spending lots of time hanging out with Lisa both during the day and... at night. I'd also discovered it was basically unfair for me to be playing online strategy games with people. I'd had to tone down my APM a little after the first few games, but spending time with Noelle had proven very enjoyable as well.

Not that I could show my face in the world, any more. The official story was that the PRT had responded to a call to my house because Taylor Hebert had been kidnapped by the Shadow Broker. The "running theory" was that this was a ploy to apply pressure on the dock workers association much like the earlier kidnapping of the mayors niece.

It wasn't the strongest story in the world but civilians didn't care to question it and there weren't any Villains in the city that weren't under my control anyways. This largely meant the city in general by this point. Amy had come through by producing relay bugs when she had the chance and by now the entirety of the city was my dominion.

It seemed that my processing power truly had no upper bounds as I was no more stressed by being omnipresent over the city than I had been previously.

As there were no real villians left in the city to contest my rule, I'd divided the city up to my forces. I'd laid down ground rules on what crimes were permitted within the city and they enforced them. Occasionally we'd get in a little scuffle with the local Protectorate to put on a show for the civilians, but last I'd heard they were planning on shipping out a few of the Heroes as the city was largely concidered a non-risk at this point.

A less well thought out plan might have had us ruling the city openly but...that was a good way to draw heat. Why invite open warfare and conflict when you could achieve the same results without doing so? We'd opened a few lanes of the bay back up, driven down non-victimless crimes massively, and we hadn't hurt the PRT's position in the process.

The Shadow Broker was the enigmatic crime Warlord of the bay and everyone that mattered knew it. Petty criminals knew that if they committed a crime that had been banned they would be found. If it wasn't stopped, it would be avenged. Petty criminals played by our rules, now. Brockton Bay was likely the safest city in the country, if not the world.

Now...now none of my attention was on any of that. Instead, it was on the teen girl leaning against the doorway that led into my room, and all of my attention was on her in that moment.

"Aimei." I whispered as I stood from where I was standing before slowly walking towards her.

She groaned slightly and rubbed her head. "Urgh. I feel like I've been asleep for days. How's things out here?"

I closed the distance between us with a quick hop and threw myself into a hug. She stood stock still for a moment before slowly returning it. "Ah...I guess I've been out a bit longer than a few days?"

I sniffed and pulled away enough to wipe the wetness from my eyes. "Yeah. Just a bit." I returned with a slight grin. "Guess you needed the beauty rest. Look at that mug."

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" She touched her face. "I am the femine definition of beauty, I'll have you know. But I guess that's why you hooked up with Lisa instead of me. Got a little bestiality kicking around in there."

I smirked, catching the reference. "What can I say, I'm a foxkin at heart."

She laughed and tossled my hair before grabbing me and tossing me over her shoulder before carrying me to the bed and laying down next to me. I let out a yelp before giggling.

"So girl talk time. What's been going on?"

"Ah, not much. You know, took care of the Empire. Beat down Saint's crew when they attacked. Converted him to being pro-Dragon. Ohh. Turns out she's an AI, by the way, and she thinks I am one too."

I paused, and then with a shrug, finished off. "Amy came through with enough relay bugs I'm watching the entire city now. You know, just normal girl things."

She grinned at me and laid back to look at the ceiling while pulling me close. "I'm glad, you know? I was worried you were becoming dependant on me, but it looks like you've managed just fine. I guess I shouldn't feel bad about how things played out."

"I told you, didn't I? Feel bad about whatever you want, but not me, never me." I sighed. "I got unmasked during the deal with Saint and the PRT showed up at my house to confront me. I...left my old life. Not that it was much of a life."

She frowned at that. "I suppose...how have you been staying in touch with your dad?"

I looked away from her. "I...haven't. He chose to side with them over me."

"Oh, Taylor." She pulled me tight. "I'm so, so sorry..."

I pinched her and she let out a light yelp.

"No. I've made my choice. My life, my choices."

She sighed and shook her head. "Yeah...you're right. I don't agree with your choices but they are your choices to make. Expect me to voice my disapproval, but I won't try to persuade you otherwise."

I nodded. "Good. Lisa wasn't thrilled either, but she's dealing with it."

She grinned at me. "Speaking of you and Lisa..."

I smirked back at her. "Oh, we took your advice to heart. Tried to wake you up, but it seems like you didn't need those ear plugs at all."

Her grin grew and she poked me in the chest. "Ohhh. You've grown quite a bit to be trading barbs with me like that."

She leaned in close to tease me as usual, but I was ready this time. I moved at the same time and caught her lips in a lock. Shock held her for a moment and she didn't pull away for a few precious seconds...until she finally did.

Her eyes were widened slightly as she looked at me. "I see trading barbs isn't the only thing you've picked up skills in."

"Mmm." I murmured. "I'd wondered what that would be like for awhile now. I have to say, I'd thought it would be better than that..."

She cut me off by initiating the kiss this time with a primal intensity that gave me that "toes curling" feeling they mentioned in books before she pulled away and smirked at me. "I'm sorry, were you saying something?"

"Murhurm..." I mumbled and blinked myself back into sanity.

"That's what I thought." She stood up and made a dusting off motion with her hands. "Now come on. I felt like I haven't eaten in forever."

I nodded dumbly as I stood to follow her out and down a few hallways to the kitchen where Lisa was hanging out and browsing things on her laptop. "Sup bos..."

She blinked, taking in Shepard's appearance before slipping into her comfortable fox like grin we'd just be joking about. "I see that princess charming here woke you with a kiss."

A shook the cob webs out of my head as Shepard just smirked back at her. "Yeesss. Jelouse?"

"Yup!" She slipped into a more friendly grin. "I thought for sure I'd land the first one."

Shepard chuckled. "Well, I'll owe you one. Afraid your girlfriend here just has more initiative than you."

Lisa stood from where she was sitting and walked over to wrap her arm around me and addressed Shepard with a wink. "She really does."

"Appreciate it." Shepard said, looking between the two of us as her mood suddenly switched to more somber and fond one. "Treasure the time together because you never know how much of it you'll have."

I kissed Lisa on the cheek and reached down to hold her hand. "Yeah. I appreciate Lisa and I do treasure our time together. Take nothing for granted, right?"

She nodded slightly. "Yeah. Never take anything for granted, or it'll just slip between your fingers."

I gave her a small smile and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I appreciate you too, Shepard. I don't want you slipping away any time soon."

She shook whatever funk that she'd gotten into out of her head and gave me a real smile. "You're right, of course. So, Lisa. How's things been?"

She shrugged lightly. "I assume Taylor's already informed you of the important parts, so I guess it's up to me to handle the day to day things then?"

Shepard nodded. "Yeah. Taylor's a bit more focused on the bigger details these days."

Lisa grinned, and I nodded slightly. She wasn't wrong. My attention was even now filling the scope of the city and keeping tabs on everything. Every jay walk, every littering. Paying attention for the more serious crimes I'd need to dispatch whoever was closest to deal with. Special attention was further given for any potential new parahumans showing up either via trigger of from out of town.

An invasion of privacy, yes. But not one that would be acted on if they kept their noses clean.

"Well. On the less serious side of things. Now that you're awake, we'll be starting up another Exalted game so Taylor here doesn't go crazy." She gave me a teasing smile. "And I've been keeping her occupied. With her ability to multitask she literally sacrifices nothing by enjoying things with her physical self."

I grinned. "Yeah. Lots of cuddling, movies, video games, reading. I've actually caught up and learned most of what I would have needed to graduate legitimately, just maybe another month or so before I'd be competent taking it without cheating."

Shepard held out a hand and waggled it a bit. "I'm not sure how much it's cheating, really. Your swarm is part of you. Being tapped into the internet is part of you. It's good to have data downloaded directly on your hard drive just in case but...I know this is backtracking on what I said earlier but you might want to prioritize on useful information for situations you may find yourself without a swarm connected to the internet."

"Hm." I tapped my chin. "Things like survival skills in case some freak accident leaves me in the wilderness?"

She nodded. "Exactly like that, yes."

"On the other side of things." Lisa continued as she noticed that my attention was lapsing back into myself to think through what skills I should pick up for random situations that may demand I actually have knowledge in my physical brain. "I've consolidated our finances, have been monitoring Saint's activities, been keeping an eye on the PRT which required actually hunting down and removing some of the old gang's moles and taking over others..."

Another chuckle from Shepard. "Yeah, between the two of you the Shadow Broker role is well filled. I assume we already have mercenaries at the rate you two work? What about the boat graveyard issue?"

"Oh, we've got a pair of shipping lanes opened up in the graveyard. Taking care of it isn't difficult. Doing so and getting out before the PRT shows up to capture known Villains is the hard part. Still, the city actually is seeing a bit of revenue starting to trickle in through there. For mercenaries, we've got Coil's guys and his Tinker tech gear. Now that you're up, I'm assuming you can outfit them in something that doesn't require us to pay an exorbitant upkeep on?"

"Oh ho. A well trained mostly ex military unit? Yes, I can most certainly get them equipped and trained in some top of the line gear. Will take me a few weeks to get my manifacturing base up and running but we'll be good to go on that front once I do. Are the Travellers still working for us?"

Lisa nodded. "Yes. Sun Dancer is helping out with the shipping project and she's got some plans drawn up to generate large quantities of power to earn a living without being a criminal. We're more than happy to help her out with that. Ballistic is happy as long as he's getting a pay check, Genesis got patched up by Panacea, and I'm pretty sure Trickster and Noelle are both dedicated to Taylor for life."

"Daw." Shepard crooned. "My protégé is already getting her own minions. I'm so proud."

I rolled my eyes while Lisa just grinned. "Yup. And what effective minions they are. We went ahead and took care of Grue's issues so he doesn't have to do crime any more. He's been happy to deal with any crimes we point him towards, though, so he's more on the vigilante side now. We've currently got Brandish of all people working on a case for Bitch. Turns out she's something of an expert in trigger cases. Who would have known? And I think she takes the case personally because of the public identity thing there. Regent's enjoying himself and getting paid, but I think he's getting bored. We're likely going to be bringing him in to the Coil level layer of the organization as the Undersiders are basically broken up at this point."

Shepard gave a concenting shrug. "Should be fine. I know his type. A little muted but not a bad guy at heart. I get the vibe he's probably pretty loyal to what few people he actually cares about which probably includes you."

"Yeah. He liked the Undersiders. he's kinda bummed we're breaking up but he gets why it's happening. He'll be a good addition to this layer. I imagine the effective blindsiding and double cons we have running on our image will have him howling for awhile."

Lisa tilted her head to the side in thought for a few moments before shrugged. "I think that's about everything. So what about you? What's up now that you're up?"

"Not much. Going to get my industrial base set up so we can equip the murks. Probably run some training excersises with them to see where they're at. With my gear they should be a decent match for the typical level of parahuman you'll run into if they're using the right tactics so we'll be able to do something like what Faultline does and hire them off except to do vigilante work in different cities where the local government or PRT director is willing to call in some outside help."

She drummed her fingers. "Once we get a stead stram of money rolling in from all of our sources we can probably have a chat with the toy box and see about testing some different ideas for potentially dealing with the Endbringers."

I nodded at that. "Yeah, that's the big one. We deal with that and getting the rest of the world back into something resembling decent shape should be an, well, by comparison, easier task. Still a pretty huge undertaking but I think we might be able to pull it off. Thus far, Endbringer fights are basically grab all the parahumans that show up and toss them at the Endbringer while hoping something sticks. Tactics? Strategy? What the hell are those?"

"It's just a result of how fractured your society is. If it wasn't, you'd have collaborations and parahumans chomping at the bit to work with each other to come up with ways they think might work."

"Definitely something we'll need to look into, and something I'm hoping you providing an outside eye might give us some insights. I'm also pretty sure that actually applying Tattletale's power to people's power usages should give us some neat results. She actually PMed Kid Win his power specialty last week."

She grinned. "It was actually pretty easy when I bothered to think about it when watching him on a camera working one night. Just had a box of random parts he'd salavage through. Compared to Armsmaster and other tinkers I poked into that everything's very deliberate with. Plug and play modular is his focus, so I just let him know."

"And apparently he didn't leave the base for three days after that."

"Yeah. Having an outside eye to look at things, regardless of competence level, can provide insights you might miss from being too close to whatever it is. Having someone like Lisa here be those outside eyes is probably damned near guaranteed to provide some kind of useful data." Shepard observed.

"That's the thought. I'm hoping if we can get her in the general vicinity of an Endbringer, with you providing bodyguarding of course, we might be able to get something useful there."

Shepard frowned. "Don't take this the wrong way, but having you near and Endbringer is litterially the last thing I want to see happen."

Lisa frowned herself. "Not something I'm exactly pleased with, but my power works better when I'm up in the action."

Shepard blinked. "Hm. First hand, or?"

Lisa shrugged. "First hand is good. Me and Taylor compared notes. Both of out powers tend to work best when we're involved in something highly stressful like combat. My power picks up details quicker and cleaner. Her range extends."

Shepard spaced out for a second. "Hm. Stress induced or actually directly correlated with combat?"

Another shrug from Lisa. "Something that's on the agenda to investigate, but we've had other priorities."

Shepard nodded. "Yeah, I get that. Bigger fish to fry and what not. So what's the game plan today?"

I paused from the conversation. "Hm. Dragon's shooting me a message. Going to take this in person. You two play nice."

Lisa pouted. "What if I don't want to play nice?"

I rolled my eyes. "Then make sure you learn something from her. Aimei has technique for days."

I headed into my lair proper and activated the usual methods for chatting with dragon. Shortly after, she appeared on my screen.

"My apologies for contacting you given how things happened with Skitter..." She sounded legitimately appologetic.

I waved my hand dismissively. "I'm upset about the girls loss of a civilian life but she isn't too torn up about it. Suggests bad things about her psychological state but that's on Shadow Stalker and her cronies, not you. Just as Armsmaster's...attempt at recruiting is on him. I'm aware he legitimately thought he was doing a good thing which happened to coincide with his glory hounding. Still, something to worry about later. What can I do for you?"

She paused. "Myself and Armsmaster are prototyping a new Endbringer prediction system. We're showing a 90% of him hitting Boston in the next few hours. Is it possible that you'll lend your aid?"

I sad up, which my digital avatar interpreted as a widening of my eyes. "Yes, of course. I'll do what I can to help out. Do you have something in mind?"

Dragon nodded. "Yes. You're aware that I have limitations. One of them confines me to only running a single itteration of my platforms at a time. You have no such restrictions and I have several suits..."

My avatar began sprouting it's Cheshire grin. "Why Dragon, you certainly know how to woo someone. I'd be delighted to take them for a spin. I'll need some time to acclimate myself with the controls. Will they be compatable with my systems?"

She nodded again. "I'll be providing your base with a real time up and down datastream running straight from your line and ISP into my systems. You'll have between now and when the Endbringer hit's shore to familiarize yourself with the controls."

I nodded again. "Sounds good. If you also give me real time access to your coordination software I should be able to provide my abilities to that as well."

She blinked. "You'll have real time coverage of Boston by then?"

I snorted. "Dragon my dear, I can have real time coverage of anywhere on Earth within a few hours. Boston is a cake walk."

"Very well, Shadow Broker. We'll appreciate the help. i'll have your systems connected shortly."

"Thank you, Dragon."

"No, thank you. Will any of your team be coming?"

I paused. "I...may be sending Tattletale and N. Tattleale may be able to get something useful out of the Endbringer. I'd appreciate if you did what you could to make sure she was returned to me in one piece."

Another nod from the Dragon. "Of course. You have my word that I'll do everything in my power to make sure she returns."

"I have arangements to make, if you'll excuse me Dragon."

"Same. Looking forwards to working with you."

With that she dropped the call while I dialed Amy's number.

"Hey. Yeah, you got the call too? Think you can get me enough relay's together to connect Brockton to Boston and give me coverage of the city?"

There was a pause on the other end. "You're not coming?"

I frowned slightly. "Unfortunately not. I'll be running tactical observation from here and...Dragon wants me to fly a bunch of her suits."

A lengthier pause this time. "I can...see how that might be more useful than having you on foot. Alright, I'll take care of it."

"Thanks, Amy. Be safe out there."

"I'll do my best. We've got things to take care of here, so..."

"Yeah. Good luck."


End file.
